Dan Cristian Vodnar

By Sonia A. Socaci, Anca C. Fărcaş, Dan C. Vodnar and Maria Tofană

Food industry produces worldwide millions of tons of plant‐derived wastes which can be exploited as sources of high‐value components: proteins, fibres, polysaccharides, flavour compounds or different phytochemicals. These bioactive compounds can be valorised as functional ingredients in food, pharmaceutical, health care, cosmetic and other products. Using the recovered bioactive molecules as functional ingredients represents a sustainable alternative of food wastes exploitation as inexpensive source of valuable compounds, while developing innovative food and non‐food products with health‐promoting benefits and at the same time contributing to an efficient waste reduction management. This chapter gives an overview of the main classes of bioactive compounds recovered from food wastes and their potential applications as functional chemicals, without being exhaustive.

Part of the book: Superfood and Functional Food

By Anca Corina Fărcaş, Sonia Ancuța Socaci, Elena Mudura, Francisc Vasile Dulf, Dan C. Vodnar, Maria Tofană and Liana Claudia Salanță

Nowadays, the consumers’ global demand for healthier diets is steadily increasing, and the development of novel functional ingredients has become a focus of the food industry. On the other hand, the accumulation of huge amounts of food wastes every year has led to environmental degradation and especially to significant loss of valuable material that could otherwise be exploited as new health-promoting ingredients, fuels and a great variety of additives. In this respect, the biggest challenge of the current scientific world is to convert the underutilised by-products generated by the food and beverage industries into more profitable and marketable added value products which would also contribute significantly to meet the nowadays society needs. This chapter gives an overview regarding the possibility of exploiting the brewing industry wastes as sources of bioactive compounds in order to produce functional ingredients and products with added value.

Part of the book: Brewing Technology

By Adriana Florinela Cӑtoi, Andra Diana Andreicuț, Dan Cristian Vodnar, Katalin Szabo, Andreea Corina, Andreea Arsene, Simona Diana Stefan, Roxana Adriana Stoica and Manfredi Rizzo

Living in a time when population is continuously ageing, the challenge and demand for assessing the age-related pathways, potential diseases and longevity have become of major interest. The pharmaceutical industry possesses huge resources in this field, mainly due to the recent discoveries of novel mechanisms of action of old-established, classical drugs. Here we find metformin, a well-established antidiabetic medicine but with new potential benefits, as the most recent reports quote. We present the main pathways of the possible implications of metformin in the modulation of ageing processes, evolution and diseases, focussing on its ageing counteraction, based on the latest scientifically based biochemical reports.

Part of the book: Metformin