Properties of Dietary Fibers from Agroindustrial Coproducts as Source for Fiber-Enriched Foods

The importance of food fibers has led to the development of a large and potential market for fiber-enriched foods, and nowadays, there is an ongoing interest to find new sources of dietary fiber (DF), such as agroindustrial coproducts which have traditionally been undervalued. The aim of the article was to evaluate the suitability of five sources of DF to develop fiber-enriched foods. Proximate analysis and physicochemical, technological, and physiological properties (including cholesterol absorption capacity) of these DF sources were determined and compared. Not only proximate composition but also physicochemical and techno-functional properties of DF samples depend on the composition of the raw material (pomegranate, citrus, tiger nutsaEuro broken vertical bar), the industrial source, and the coproducts processing into DF extracts. Total dietary fiber content and the ratio insoluble/soluble dietary fiber determine the values obtained for these properties. However, cholesterol adsorption capacity seems to be influenced for other components linked to dietary fiber. Extracts rich in DF obtained from agroindustrial coproducts can be used as functional ingredients. The characterization of these extracts is very important to decide in which type of foods these fibers could be added without causing adverse changes in the food matrix. Pomegranate dietary fiber shows promising results principally about their cholesterol adsorption capacity which must be investigated in in vitro digestion process.