Search

Wild edible fruits, neglected by the development of commercial agriculture, have recently aroused as a good source of natural colorants and bioactive compounds. These novel uses could cover the recent demand for healthier foods with functional properties. Prunus avium, Fragaria vesca and Vaccinium myrtillus wild fruits were characterized by individual anthocyanin profile and color CIELAB parameters, as well as phenolic fraction. In addition, some bioactivities were evaluated. In P. avium cyanidin-O-deoxyhexosyl-pentoside was the representative anthocyanin, in F. vesca pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside and in V. myrtillus delphinidin-O-hexoside. The three wild edible fruits showed interesting antioxidant activity especially in OxHLIA assays. V. myrtillus was the fruit with the best results for the bacterial growth inhibition, while F. vesca with better fungal growth inhibition. These results evidenced the richness of these wild fruits in bioactive compounds and pigments with antioxidant capacity, therefore, their potential use as natural colorants for healthier food products design., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)