Determination of the Efficiencies of Fruit Peels as Antimicrobial Agent and Edible Film for Foods

Fruits and vegetable peels, which contain bioactive compounds including carotenoids and polyphenols, have positive effects on human health. Additionally, the biological activity in the peels is higher than that in other parts of vegetables and fruits, which makes their assessment of great importance. The current study aimed to produce antimicrobial films as coating materials from fruit crust residues. First, the extracts of peel residues obtained from lemon, orange, red apple, green apple were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity. Later, the peels whose extracts demonstrated the highest antimicrobial activity were used to prepare edible films. All extracts obtained from the fruit peels demonstrated antibiotic activity yet those of lemon and orange were the highest. Therefore, edible films, containing carrageenan, xanthan and carob, were produced from lemon and orange peels. Moreover, higher antimicrobial effect was recorded when orange was used to prepare karagenan film and lemon was used to prepare the xanthan, karajenan and carob edible films. Such results indicate that films prepared from lemon extracts showed more antimicrobial activity than films prepared from orange extracts. As a result these findings; antimicrobial agents which are produced from fruit peels, can be an alternative for using directly as antimicrobial agent and extending the shelf-life of food products