An Overview of the Potentialities of Antimicrobial Peptides Derived from Natural Sources in the Food Field

Over the past decades, epidemiological surveys have given robust evidence about the association between regular antioxidant-rich intakes and the reduced incidence of inflammation, cancer, cardiovascular disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, and diabetes. Therefore, consumer demand for functional foods, supplements, and nutraceuticals that provide antioxidants has increased in the last decade. Plants are rich in trace components with antioxidant properties. Agro-food industries produce massive amounts of non-edible waste rich in secondary metabolites with antioxidant potentiality. These raw materials could be low-cost supplies for up-cycling active antioxidant phytochemicals. Of particular interest could be the recovery of phenolic compounds, abundant in plant residues, with functional potential that can be used in nutraceutical, biomedical, and cosmetic formulations. The valorization of plant by-products can be strategic for the agro-food industry and sustainability policies since preventing the ecosystems' eutrophication preserves ecological standards. Many strategies have been proposed for the recovery of these compounds at a laboratory scale. The problem to be addressed is how to recover these compounds on a large scale without decreasing their functional characteristics. This work discusses advanced technologies proposed for extracting polyphenols from agri-food by-products recently, considering not only the ability to extract the phenolic compounds exhaustively and preserve their antioxidant properties but also the ability to be applied in advantageous conditions of time and energy.