The food sector includes several large industries such as canned food, pasta, flour, frozen products, and beverages. Those industries transform agricultural raw materials into added-value products. The fruit and vegetable industry is the largest and fastest-growing segment of the world agricultural production market, which commercialize various products such as juices, jams, and dehydrated products, followed by the cereal industry products such as chocolate, beer, and vegetable oils are produced. Similarly, the root and tuber industry produces flours and starches essential for the daily diet due to their high carbohydrate content. However, the processing of these foods generates a large amount of waste several times improperly disposed of in landfills. Due to the increase in the world’s population, the indiscriminate use of natural resources generates waste and food supply limitations due to the scarcity of resources, increasing hunger worldwide. The circular economy offers various tools for raising awareness for the recovery of waste, one of the best alternatives to mitigate the excessive consumption of raw materials and reduce waste. The loss and waste of food as a raw material offers bioactive compounds, enzymes, and nutrients that add value to the food cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. This paper systematically reviewed literature with different food loss and waste by-products as animal feed, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products that strongly contribute to the paradigm shift to a circular economy. Additionally, this review compiles studies related to the integral recovery of by-products from the processing of fruits, vegetables, tubers, cereals, and legumes from the food industry, with the potential in SARS-CoV-2 disease and bacterial diseases treatment.

Banana is a fruit grown mainly in tropical countries of the world. After harvest, almost 60% of banana biomass is left as waste. Worldwide, about 114.08 million metric tons of banana waste-loss are produced, leading to environmental problems such as the excessive emission of greenhouse gases. These wastes contain a high content of paramount industrial importance, such as cellulose, hemicellulose and natural fibers that various processes can modify, such as bacterial fermentation and anaerobic degradation, to obtain bioplastics, organic fertilizers and biofuels such as ethanol, biogas, hydrogen and biodiesel. In addition, they can be used in wastewater treatment methods by producing low-cost biofilters and obtaining activated carbon from rachis and banana peel. Furthermore, nanometric fibers commonly used in nanotechnology applications and silver nanoparticles useful in therapeutic cancer treatments, can be produced from banana pseudostems. The review aims to demonstrate the contribution of the recovery of banana production waste-loss towards a circular economy that would boost the economy of Latin America and many other countries of emerging economies.

Several biomaterials, including natural polymers, are used to increase cellular interactions as an effective way to treat bone injuries. Chitosan (CS) is one of the most studied biocompatible natural polymers. Graphene oxide (GO) is a carbon-based nanomaterial capable of imparting desired properties to the scaffolds. In the present study, CS and GO were used for scaffold preparation. CS was extracted from the mycelium of the fungus Aspergillus niger. On the other hand, GO was synthesized using an improved Hummers-Offemann method and was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Subsequently, three formulations (GO 0%, 0.5%, and 1%) were used to prepare the scaffolds by the freeze-drying technique. The scaffolds were characterized by FTIR, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to determine their thermal stability and pore size, demonstrating that their stability increased with the increase of GO amount. Finally, the scaffolds were implanted, recollected 30 days later, and studied with an optical microscope, which evidenced the recovery of the tissue architecture and excellent biocompatibility. Hence, these results strongly suggested the inherent nature of chitosan/graphene oxide (CS/GO) scaffolds for their application in bone tissue regeneration.

Fermentation has been used for preserving foods for centuries prior to the invention of pasteurization and sterilization, and every culture has a variety of fermented products as part of its diet. This paper reviews the diversity of fermented foods and beverages from Latin America; these fermented products are produced by traditional methods that exploit mixed cultures of various nonpathogenic microorganisms. Fermented foods covered in this review include maize, cassava, palm sap, sugar cane juice, cocoa, and milk. We explore the history of some Colombian fermented foods and beverages, which are today part of the tradition of some ethnic groups, and evaluate their technology, microbiology, the presence of some nutritional factors, and safety concerns. To the best of our knowledge, this is the 1st systematic review on Colombian fermented beverages and foods, and we believe that it may contribute to valorize these products that are still part of the Latin America tradition.

The strawberry is a fruit appreciated in the food industry for its high content of bioactive compounds. However, it is considered a highly perishable fruit, generally attacked by pests of phytopathogenic origin, which decreases its shelf-life. Normally, to diminish the losses caused by pathogenic microbes, coatings of polysaccharides in combination with natural products like essential oils are applied. In this work, we describe the effect of edible coatings from chitosan (CT) incorporating Thymus capitatus essential oil (TCEO), applied to strawberries stored under refrigeration conditions (5 ± 0.5 °C). Different concentrations of TCEO were applied to chitosan coatings, with different effects on the physical and microbiological properties of the strawberries. All the products had greater acceptance and quality than the controls, being more effective those with essential oil incorporation. It is noteworthy that all the essential oil treatments lead to an increase in the shelf-life of strawberries of up to 15 days. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of the microstructure showed a decrease in compactness with TCEO introduction, but without compromising food preservation after 15 days. In addition, treated strawberries delayed the loss of physicochemical and antioxidant properties, due to protection against the microbial development of aerobic mesophylls, molds, and yeasts.