Some coffee constituents have important antioxidant effects

Food science and technology: The coffee industry produces, among others, more than 2 billion tons of coffee by-products each year from the silver skin of the coffee beans and coffee grounds, which have a negative impact on the environment. Spanish researchers have examined these by-products and found that they have important antioxidant properties. The results were published in the journal "Food Science and Technology".

To conduct their study, José Ángel Rufián Henares and colleagues from the University of Granada have tried to find applications in the coffee grounds and the silver skin of the coffee beans to reduce the amount of waste produced. They discovered that the coffee grounds and the silver skin are rich in fiber and phenols, which impart their potent antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.
The antioxidant effects of coffee grounds are actually 500 times that of vitamin C and could be used to create so-called "functional" foods with significant health benefits, the authors write.
However, to exploit the beneficial effects of prebiotics byproducts coffee melanoidins contained therein must be eliminated, because they interfere with these beneficial prebiotic properties. They could still be used for a range of practical applications, such as preventing the growth of harmful pathogens in food products, said Rufián Henares.