Fruits from cactus

Mosshammer, M.R., Stintzing, F.C., and Carle, R., Evaluation of different methods for the production of juice concentrates and fruit powders from cactus pear, Innov. Food Sci. Emerg. TechnoL, 7, 275, 2006. 

Gentile, C. et al.. Antioxidant betalains from cactus pear (Opuntia ficus- indica) fruit inhibit endothelial ICAM-1 expression, Ann. NY Acad. ScL, 1028, 481, 2004. 

As for anthocyanins, betalains are found in vacuoles and cytosols of plant cells. From the various natural sources of betalains, beetroot (Beta vulgaris) and prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus indica) are the only edible sources of these compounds. In the food industry, betalains are less commonly used as natural colorants from plant sources than anthocyanins and carotenoids, probably related to their more restricted distribution in nature. To date, red beetroot is the only betalain source exploited for use as a natural food coloring agent. The major betalain in red beetroot is betanin (or betanidin 5-0-P-glucoside). Prickly pear fruits contain mainly (purple-red) betanin and (yellow-orange) indicaxanthin and the color of these fruits is directly related to the betanin-to-indicaxanthin ratio (99 to 1, 1 to 8, and 2 to 1, respectively in white, yellow, and red fruits)." ... 

After ingestion of cactus pear fruit pulp, both betanin and indicaxanthin were found in human plasma (with AUCo i2 h values of 0.46 and 29.2 lunol/hr/mL, respectively), partly associated with LDL, and in urine (3 and 76%, respectively, of the ingested compounds)," indicating that indicaxanthin was better absorbed than betanin. The bioavailability of indicaxanthin from prickly pear fruit pulp was 20 times that of betanin, suggesting differences in the fates of the two classes of betalains (betacyanin and betaxanthins) in the human body. In rats, betanin appeared to be... 

Cactus pear, previously known as prickly pear, has been mainly studied for its green fleshed pads known as nopalitos. It originates from Mexico but is cultivated in Chile and Peru, mainly for cochineal production, and also in the U.S. (California and Texas), South Africa, India, Israel, and the Mediterranean, amounting to a total of 100,000 hectares under cultivation. The cactus pear fruit is a berry with many seeds and a mean weight of 160 g. Its fruit pulp covers a color range from deep purple to green. " ... 

These studies demonstrate that the processing of cactus pears into coloring preparations is feasible. It is now up to companies to exploit the enormous potential of these fruits. The by-products from Opuntia processing such as seeds and peels could be further processed into vegetable oil and pectin, respectively. 

The betalains are confined to ten families of the order Caryophyllales20 The only foods containing betalains are red beet (Beta vulgaris), chard (B. vulgaris), cactus fruit (Opuntia ficus-indica) and pokeberries (Phytolacca americana). They also occur in the poisonous mushroom Amanita muscaria but this is not a normal food source. The importance of the betalains as colorants is confined to preparations from red beet. 

Although most insects are flexible about their steroid sources, senita flies definitely are not They lack a set of enzymes indispensable for utilizing most steroids, cholesterol included. The enzymes they do have can handle only a few rare natural steroids, and only with these unusual compounds as starting points can they produce their own essential steroids. The single Sonoran source of these rare steroids seems to be senita cactus, and thus senita flies must incorporate the cactus into their diets or perish. As the only Sonoran fruit flies resistant to senita toxins, senita flies experience no competition from their relatives for the one plant that keeps them alive. 

In this section, I will examine endemism within the cactus stem necrosis commimity, which has been sampled far more extensively than either the cactus flower or cactus fruit necrosis communities. The first evidence for endemism I present is the taxonomic makeup of the community. The basis for this overview is a compilation of data from two sources 3451 strains isolated by me (with the help acknowledged below) and 5159 strains isolated by Dr William T. Starmer and his co-workers (Starmer et al., 1990). The total of 8610 strains includes only strains that belong to described taxa (species and varieties) or to known taxa that have not been published as ofyet. Almost all come from North and South America, the Caribbean Islands and Austraha. 

The female cochineal scale Insects attach themselves to and feed from the cactus previously they had been misconceived as fruits of the plants (a). - The larvae of Porphyrophora polonica are sessile parasites living on the roots of the perennial knawel (b), growing on sandy soils of Central Europe. 

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