Overview of Cucurbita spp. (pumpkin) and development of value-added products emphasizing its nutritional and chemical composition
1 Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.
2 Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.
Review Article
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2023, 18(02), 1215-1226
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2023.18.2.0938
Publication history:
Received on 11 April 2023; revised on 20 May 2023; accepted on 22 May 2023
Abstract:
Pumpkin (Cucurbita spp.) is a commonly grown vegetable across the world however, due to its underutilization as a food source a significant imbalance between pumpkin production and consumption has been identified. Many researchers have reported morphological diversity and differences in the nutritional and chemical composition among the pumpkin species which resulted in a selective distribution of Cucurbita species in different parts of the world. As evidenced from literature, pumpkin has been identified as a remarkable source of nutrients and reported with high protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, and especially with high amounts of antioxidants. Despite their nutritional value, post-harvest loss associated with pumpkins is significantly high which highlights the importance of utilization of pumpkins through value addition. The value addition of pumpkin has drawn a huge research interest over the past years which has emphasized the nutritional and chemical composition of pumpkin, especially in the edible (flesh, seeds) and non-edible (peel and pulp) fruits parts and pumpkin flowers in several value additions. This review furnishes an overview of Cucurbita spp. production and the post-harvest loss associated with pumpkin along with the updated information about the reported value additions based on existing literature.
Keywords:
Cucurbita spp.; Underutilized crop; Value addition; Morphological variation; Nutrient composition
Full text article in PDF:
Copyright information:
Copyright © 2023 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0