Polyphenols have gained much interest recently due to its antioxidant capacity and possible benefits to human health such as anti-carcinogenic, anti-atherogenic, anti-ulcer, antithrombotic, anti-inflammatory, immune modulating, anti-microbial, vasodilatory and analgesic effects. Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a rich source of polyphenols and reported having high antioxidant activity than teas an...

Lung cancer is a common malignancy in men and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in men in the western world. Phenolic cocoa ingredients have a strong antioxidative activity and the potential to have a protective effect against cancer. In the present study, we have evaluated the influence of cocoa beans subjected to different processing conditions on cell viability and apoptos...

Bulk Frying Oil (BFO) derived from semi-purified crude palm oil is widely used in Indonesia. Different from refined-bleached-deodorized palm olein that usually undergo full purification and fractionation, BFO is considered as lower quality because it still contains soft stearin fraction. Long shelf life and the reusability of frying oil could be improved by the addition of synthetic antioxidant...

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a commodity produced in the developing countries of the tropics. It is mainly consumed in the middle and high income countries of the world’s temperate zone. Currently, over 50 countries are engaged in cocoa production and heavily rely only on cocoa exportation for their economic development, as this commodity contributes significantly to foreign exchange earnings....

Abstract The densification of cocoa bean shells into pellets was investigated to evaluate their potential as an alternative bioenergy source. effect shell particle size, compaction stress, speed and binder addition studied ascertain the optimum processing conditions produce highest quality pellet. Compressive tensile strength testing employed mechanical integrity pellets, alongside resistance a...

Amplification of repetitive bacterial DNA elements through the polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR fingerprinting) using the (GTG)(5) primer, referred to as (GTG)(5)-PCR fingerprinting, was found a promising genotypic tool for rapid and reliable speciation of acetic acid bacteria (AAB). The method was evaluated with 64 AAB reference strains, including 31 type strains, and 132 isolates from Ghana...

The main procyanidins, including dimeric B2 and B5, trimeric C1, tetrameric and pentameric procyanidins, were isolated from unroasted cocoa beans (Theobroma cacao L.) using various techniques of countercurrent chromatography, such as high-speed countercurrent chromatography (HSCCC), low-speed rotary countercurrent chromatography (LSRCCC) and spiral-coil LSRCCC. Furthermore, dimeric procyanidins...

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is the main mycotoxin occurring in cocoa. A study was conducted in Cameroon to assess how filamentous fungi and toxigenesis were affected by the type of cocoa post-harvest treatment (boxes or heaps). The filamentous fungi isolated were almost identical when fermentation was carried out in boxes or heaps, with the presence of abundant black Aspergillus filamentous fungi: A. ni...

This is the first report on the phylogenetic analysis of the community diversity of a single spontaneous cocoa bean box fermentation sample through a metagenomic approach involving 454 pyrosequencing. Several sequence-based and composition-based taxonomic profiling tools were used and evaluated to avoid software-dependent results and their outcome was validated by comparison with previously obt...