Nutritional and antioxidant value of horticulturae products

The recent growing interest towards the nutraceutical and antioxidant value of fruit and vegetables has arisen from their content of phytochemicals, which provide desirable health benefits, beyond basic nutrition, to reduce the risk of major chronic diseases [1]. For this reason, it is necessary for the human diet to contain a good proportion of plant antioxidant compounds. Therefore, horticultural science must dedicate more attention to satisfy the expectations of consumers who are demanding more and more high-quality functional foods. The Special Issue on the “Nutritional and Antioxidant Value of Horticultural Products” has provided readers with novel insights into some ‘unusual’ types of foods. In fact, the articles published included information about edible flowers, Italian green tea, and stinging nettle, along with potato and sweet potato. Demasi et al. [2] investigated the sensory profile of 17 edible flowers (Figure 1) at harvest, and their shelf life and bioactive compound dynamics during cold storage, providing the characteristics and requirements of the different flowers. The authors evaluated the aroma of the flower with 10 sensory descriptors (intensity of sweet, sour, bitter, salt, smell, specific flower aroma, and herbaceous aroma; spiciness, chewiness, and astringency), and, both at harvest and during 14 d of storage at 4 °C, the flower visual quality, polyphenol and anthocyanin content, and antioxidant activity were evaluated. The paper presents a lot of information concerning flowers’ sensory profiles, phytochemical characteristics, and shelf life, which are very useful to select suitable species for the edible flower market; for example, a strong aroma was revealed for Allium ursinum, Dianthus carthusianorum, Lavandula angustifolia, and Leucanthemum vulgare, while the flowers with the longest shelf life were Rosa pendulina (14 days) and Rosa canina (10 days).