Determination of carotenoids content from varieties of food waste using solvent extraction method

Annually, there was 1/3 of food lost from food supply chain of farm to table, causing economic lost and environmental impacts. In fact, bioactive compounds found in food waste such as carotenoids could be utilized for other beneficial purpose. An experiment was conducted to extract carotenoids from varieties of food waste, quantify them and determine their antioxidant properties. Food wastes preferred were carrot peel, mango peel, banana peel, orange peel and tomato skin whereas solvents used were acetone, ethanol and hexane. Acetone, the most effective solvent was preferred to extract carotenoids from each food waste with their absorbance values being measured using spectrophotometer. DPPH and ABTS assays were used to indicate antioxidant properties of each extract. The results showed that total carotenoid content in mango peel, orange peel, banana peel, tomato peel, and carrot peel were 11.924 µg/g, 11.446 µg/g, 10.308 µg/g, 0.459 µg/g and 0.344 µg/g respectively. In DPPH assay, antioxidant activities of banana peel, carrot peel, orange peel, mangoes peel and tomato skin were 86.714 %, 85.154 %, 81.728 %, 78.470 % and 28.754 % respectively. In ABTS assay, orange peel, mangoes peel, tomato skin, carrot peel and banana peel were with antioxidant activities of 94.872 %, 88.259 %, 87.449 %, 85.693 % and 85.255 % respectively. Food wastes with high carotenoid content and antioxidant activity can be utilized for value adding purposes such as food fortification, nutritional supplement and prolonging products' shelf life. Environmental problems due to food waste accumulation could be greatly reduced and data obtained could aid in future research.