Major tree crops contribute substantially to the economy of many developing countries on the Asian, African and Latin American continents. For example, coffee is the main revenue earner for Kenya. This book provides a comprehensive review of the agronomy, botany, taxonomy, genetics, chemistry, economics, and future global prospects of a range of crops that have great food, industrial and economic value such as cocoa, coffee, cashew, oil palm and natural rubber. - Discusses the major tree crops of great economic value to the developing world - The author is an eminent scientist who has won numerous awards for his work in this area

This book paints a wide canvas of the immense global economic potential of ten most important cash generating crops spread over Asia, Africa and Latin America, namely, Arecanut, Cashew Nut, Coconut, Cinchona, Cocoa, Coffee, Tea, Oil Palm, Rubber and Wattle. It provides a cross-sectoral, multi-scale assessment of the status of these crops, from seed to dining table, an invaluable treatise on the subject. Structured to be an invaluable tool for the inquisitive researcher, an ardent student, and, an insightful policy maker.

This comprehensive book documents African plants used for functional and medicinal foods. It contains more than 60 detailed monographs of African foods, describing foods with various characteristics such as prebiotic, probiotic, satiety, immune modulation, stress-reduction, sports performance, mental acuity, sleep-supporting, metabolic syndrome, antioxidant, and unsaturated fats. Plant description, botanical names and synonyms, plant part used, habitat and distribution, folk use, nutritional content, and chemistry are all fully detailed. The book highlights indigenous African food processing technologies up to the modern era.

This book provides a summarized information related to the global herbal drug market and its regulations, ethnopharmacology of traditional crude drugs, isolation of phytopharmaceuticals, phytochemistry, standardization, and quality assessment of crude drugs. Natural products science has constantly been developing with comprehensive data contemplating different parts of natural drugs, such as global trade, quality control and regulatory concerns, traditional medicine systems, production and utilization of drugs, and utilization of medicinal and aromatic plants. This broad information about crude drugs gives rise to a subject that is now recognized as advance natural products science. By contemplating all of this thorough knowledge of the areas, this book is intended to provide considerably to the natural products science. The area of natural products science involves a broad range of topics, such as the pharmacognostical, phytochemical, and ethno-pharmacological aspects of crude drugs. Each chapter gives a sufficient understanding to academicians and researchers in the respective topic. This book includes 40 illustrations and descriptions of roughly 80 medicinal plants used for herbal medicine. The book is an imperative source for all researchers, academicians, students, and those interested in natural products science. FEATURES Includes advance knowledge and detailed developments in natural products science Discusses the most important phytopharmaceuticals used in the pharmaceutical industry Explores the analysis and classification of novel plant-based medicinal compounds Includes standardization, quality control, and global trade of natural products Gives a deep understanding related to recent advances in herbal medicines to treat various ailments Discusses national and WHO regulations and policies related to herbal medicines Covers the complete profile of some important traditional medicinal plants, especially their historical background, biology, and chemistry

This book entitled “Cocoa, Chocolate, and Human Health” presents the most recent findings about cocoa and health in 14 peer-reviewed chapters including nine original contributions and five reviews from cocoa experts around the world. Bioavailability and metabolism of the main cocoa polyphenols, i.e., the flavanols like epicatechin, are presented including metabolites like valerolactones that are formed by the gut microbiome. Many studies, including intervention studies or epidemiological observations, do not focus on single compounds, but on cocoa as a whole. This proves the effectiveness of cocoa as a functional food. A positive influence of cocoa on hearing problems, exercise performance, and metabolic syndrome is discussed with mixed results; the results about exercise performance are contradictive. Evidence shows that cocoa flavanols may modulate some risk factors related to metabolic syndrome such as hypertension and disorders in glucose and lipid metabolism. However, several cardiometabolic parameters in type 2 diabetics were not affected by a flavanol-rich cocoa powder as simultaneous treatment with pharmaceuticals might have negated the effect of cocoa. The putative health-promoting components of cocoa are altered during processing like fermentation, drying, and roasting of cocoa beans. Chocolate, the most popular cocoa product, shows remarkable losses in polyphenols and vitamin E during 18 months of storage.

This reference book provides a comprehensive overview on active ingredients of the plants that are present in beverages. The book aims to highlight the important aspects of each plant from a botanical perspective elaborating on the morphology of the species and ecological and agronomic specificities on their phytochemistry. It also discusses manufacturing techniques for control and analysis of these products of natural origin. The content is divided into eleven main sections containing chapters contributed from valuable experts in their field. The book serves as a useful resource for graduate students, scholars and researchers in the field of botany, agriculture, food chemistry, nutrition as well as industrial scientists and those involved in marketing of phytochemicals, plants and their extracts.

Cocoa and coffee beans are some of the most traded agricultural commodities on international markets. Combined, they provide raw materials for a global industry valued in excess of $250 billion. Despite this, few people know that microorganisms and microbial fermentation play key roles in their production and can have major impacts on product quality, safety, and value. Cocoa and Coffee Fermentations explores the scientific principles behind cocoa and coffee fermentation. The book covers botanical and production backgrounds, methods of bean fermentation and drying, microbial ecology and activities of fermentation, the biochemistry of fermentation, product quality and safety, and waste utilization. The book aims to optimize cocoa and coffee processing based on scientific evidence to enhance traditional processing methods that often give rise to inefficiencies and inconsistencies in product quality. It also aims to provide a better understanding of the complex microbial ecology in cocoa and coffee fermentations which involve interactions between species of yeasts, bacteria, and filamentous fungi. Cocoa and Coffee Fermentations hopes to inspire further research linking the microbiology and biochemistry of cocoa and coffee bean fermentations with the development of better controlled fermentations, implementation of quality assurance programs, and ultimately improvement of the sensory attributes of the final product.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Effects of Polyphenol-Rich Foods on Human Health" that was published in Nutrients