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Eleocharis dulcis corm: Phytochemicals, health benefits, processing and food products.

BACKGROUND
Eleocharis dulcis, an aquatic plant belonging to Cyperaceae family is indigenous to Asia, and also inhabits in tropical Africa and Australia. The edible corm part of E. dulcis is a commonly consumed aquatic vegetable with planting area of 44.46 × 103 hm2 in China. This work aims to explore the potentials of E. dulcis corm to be used as new food source for sufficient nutrients and health benefits by reviewing its nutrients, phytochemicals, functions, processing and food products.


RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
E. dulcis corm contains starches, dietary fibers, non-starch polysaccharides, proteins, amino acids, phenolics, sterols, puchiin, saponins, minerals and vitamins. Among them, phenolics including flavonoids and quinones could be the major bioconstitutes that largely contribute to antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antitumor, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective and hypolipidemic functions. Peel wastes of E. dulcis corm tends to be enriched in much higher phenolics than the edible pulp. Fresh-cut E. dulcis corm can be consumed as a ready-to-eat food or be processed into juice for beverage production, and anti-browning processing is a key to prolonging shelf life. Present food products of E. dulcis corm are centered on various fruit and vegetable beverages, and suffer from single categories and inadequate development. In brief, underutilized E. dulcis corm possesses great potentials to be used as new food source for sufficient nutrients and health benefits. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.