Research Progress on Pepper Seeds and Their High Value-added Utilization

Pepper is one of the most important cultivated vegetables used as condiment at home and abroad. It is commonly consumed as fresh vegetable or processed into dried and sliced pepper,pepper powder,sauce,chopped pepper,and some deep-processing products such as capsaicin,capsanthin and more. A large number of pepper seeds are often discarded as by-product in growing pepper processing industry,yet the successful and efficient utilization of them is scarce,which leads to the waste of source. Pepper seeds contain a variety of nutritional and active ingredients,which can be processed into functional oil or food ingredient. This review described the current advance and trends in the utilization of pepper seeds including the compositions,extraction methods,quality characteristics of the dietary fiber,oil,protein and other components in pepper seeds,and analyzed the current problems. It would provide new insights for future research of the utilization and development.