Banana inflorescence: Its bio-prospects as an ingredient for functional foods
Graphical abstract
Introduction
The banana (Musa spp.) is an important food crop worldwide, ranked just below maize, rice, wheat, cassava, and potatoes, but above sorghum, millet and sweet potatoes (German Calberto, Staver, & Siles, 2015). As bananas are widely consumed around the world, a large amount of this tropical fruit, estimated to be more than 125 million tonnes, is produced annually (German Calberto et al., 2015; Imbert et al., 2011) (Table 1). Although Asian countries produce the highest quantity of bananas, i.e. approximately 57 million tonnes in 2011, they are not the world's largest exporters due to high local demand. The main exporters of bananas from 2011 to 2015 are countries from Latin America and the Caribbean (70–80% of world banana exports), followed by Asia (15–20%) and Africa (3–4%) (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2017). Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Columbia and Philippines are the top five countries in banana exports (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2017) (Table 2).
Banana plants belong to the Musaceae family. Out of the three genera (Musa, Ensete and Musella) under the same family, Musa is the genus most commonly consumed around the world (Mathew & Negi, 2017). It is further divided into Australimusa and Eumusa (Mohapatra, Mishra, & Sutar, 2010). The banana plant is reported to have originated from India, Malaysia, Burma and Japan (Mathew & Negi, 2017). The most commonly consumed bananas are cultivars from several species namely M. acuminata, M. cavendishii, M. paradisiaca and M. sapientum (Mohapatra et al., 2010).
Agricultural by-products are typically discarded but, recently, there has been a shift in the management of these by-products by converting them into value-added products. In fact, there is a renewed interest in agricultural by-products because of the various bioactive compounds with potential health-promoting effects. As the banana is an important crop worldwide, plantations produce tonnes of by-products after each harvest season, including the peel, leaves, pseudostem, stalk and inflorescence (Padam, Tin, Chye, & Abdullah, 2014). Many scientific investigations on bananas and, to some extent, their agricultural by-products have been carried out (Anjum, Sundaram, & Rai, 2014; Mathew & Negi, 2017; Mohapatra et al., 2010; Padam et al., 2014). A search of the existing literature, nevertheless, reveals that most of the research work has focused mainly on the pulp (fruit). Very little information on the banana inflorescence is available even though it is widely used by communities from different regions as a food ingredient and traditional medicine. Hence, a detailed review into the bio-prospects of the banana inflorescence is timely as it will shed light on its potential use as a source of nutraceuticals and functional food. Moreover, as the banana inflorescence is edible, it has a higher public acceptance than other non-edible parts of the banana plant and, thus, merits further consideration for future product development and commercialisation.
Several well-known scientific search engines with a broad coverage were employed for the literature search including the Web of Science (https://webofknowledge.com), Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com), and Scopus (https://www.scopus.com). A detailed bibliographic search was carried out using these search engines on the keywords ‘banana inflorescence’, ‘banana blossom’, ‘banana flower’ and ‘banana heart’. Information on the nutritional content, biological activities and bioactive compounds from the banana inflorescence were scrutinized, critically analysed and systematically compiled in the present review. This review was also aimed at bridging the gap of knowledge in the existing literature and, at the same time, advancing our understanding on the potential utilisation of the banana inflorescence.
Section snippets
Structure
The banana is a herbaceous flowering plant with an underground stem and a pseudostem. The banana inflorescence can be found at the end of the plant, extended from the pseudostem (Fig. 1A and B). Only one inflorescence develops from a banana plant and it consists of a stalk, bracts and flowers. The banana inflorescence, which is also known as “banana blossom”, “banana flower” or “banana heart”, is a dark purple-red heart shaped structure or flower bud that is located at the end of the stalk or
Chemistry
The chemistry of the banana inflorescence has yet to be extensively explored but it is acknowledged that its proximate composition and profiles of other nutritional contents, such as fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins and minerals are routinely being analysed. Existing data seem to suggest that the banana inflorescence is a good source of nutrients, similar to the pulp. From the phytochemical perspective, progress is being made to elucidate the bioactive compounds in the banana inflorescence
Functional properties of the banana inflorescence
While ethnobotanical knowledge serves as the reference for the possible use of many plants, including edible crops like bananas, scientific validation of these claimed medicinal properties, which are mainly based on traditional practices, is still needed. Overall, the banana inflorescence has been shown to exhibit various biological activities which might be indicative of its potential health-promoting properties. In particular, the antioxidant and anti-diabetic activities of the banana
Future perspectives and conclusions
Based on previous scientific reports on the biological activities of the banana inflorescence, there is indeed great potential for it to be utilised as an alternative ingredient in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. Its application as a preventive agent against oxidative stress, diabetes, cancer and microbial infections should be further studied. Even though promising findings have been obtained from the in vitro and in vivo studies, they are still at a rather preliminary stage
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China (Grant No. CARS-31-12), Department of Science and Technology of Guangxi (Grant No. GuikeAA17204038; GuikeAD19110141; 2017GXNSFAA198177; 2019GXNSFAA185027), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31560467; 31660589; 31560006; 31860579) and University of Malaya, Malaysia.
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