PONE-D-24-32412DEVELOPMENT AND NUTRITIONAL EVALUATION OF POMEGRANATE PEEL ENRICHED BARSPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kinki,

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Lakshmanan Govindan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Major Revision

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: I Don't Know

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This study investigated the effect of the addition of pomegranate peel powder on the bars quality. The abstract needs to be rewritten. The materials and methods section is poorly written. The manuscript is written very sloppily. The scientific quality is too low. The discussion is insufficient.

- Line and page numbers should be added.

- The abstract must include the background, methods, some results and conclusions. Please, improve the abstract. Please give more details about the formulations (T0-T4) in the abstract. The abstract does not reflect the all results of the study. It should be improved.

- What is the novelty of the study? Please explain it at the end of the Introduction section.

- In the Materials and Methods section, Please add the brand, model and origin of all equipment.

- The preparation of bars should be detailed.

- The formulations of the bars should be added to the Materials and Methods section.

- Please give more details about the analysis methods of total phenolic, total flavonoid contents and antioxidant activity.

- The materials and methods section should be completely rewritten.

- Abbreviations (TPC, TFC, DPPH) should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

- Please add the units of the moisture, ash, fat and fiber content in the sentence of “The findings are supported by Ullah et al. (2012) who reported that pomegranate peel contains moisture 04, ash 05, fat 2.4, crude fiber 21 and protein 9.718%.”.

- Antioxidant? or Anti-oxidant? Please select one.

- Please add a space between the unit and the number “348.53 mg GAE/100 g”.

- “The reason of increasing hardness of bars is due to high fiber content in pomegranate peel powder.” Please add a reference.

- The discussion of color results should be improved.

- In Table 7, Please check “8.96±0.48c”. Is it a?

Reviewer #2: Very poorly written and presented work! Low quality of data without novelty, I can't accept it!

Please check the whole manuscript carefully and try to modify it from top to bottom! It would be great if the authors check the language too!

Reviewer #3: overall paper is good and well explained and sufficient experiement with results related to this kind of study. I will suggest a detailed evaluation of english language improvement for better understanding and a language quality for the journal standard.

Reviewer #4: I have reviewed the manuscript, and I find this a very interesting study to repurpose food by-product. A good effort towards reducing food waste. The study successfully developed a formulation that will be beneficial and accepted by the community.

The manuscript, however, lacks clarity and explanation of the observed results could be improved. Methodologies employed in the study are over-simplified and the actual statistical analysis was not defined.

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Page 13 – ‘The moisture content of cupcakes was decreased from 9.84 to 13.25%’. Please clarify this sentence; increased or decreased? If this is an ‘increased’, please re-explain the conclusion for this part i.e. as to how it affects the shelf life of the formulated pomegranate bar

2. Page 13-14 – Protein and fat content. Authors mentioned that the pomegranate peel devoid protein and fat content. This statement does not support the observed reduction pattern of protein and fat content in the pomegranate bar. Increment of the pomegranate peels will also mean more protein and fat will be added to the bar. Biochemical reactions and processes involved in preparation of the bar could be worth investigating as they may provide better explanation to the observed results.

3. Page 18 – DPPH evaluation. Please re-check the DPPH value for T0. There’s a difference between the value stated in the paragraph and table 5.

4. Pages 20 and 21 – Phosphorus and magnesium evaluation. Please re-clarify the reason for the observed reduction of these minerals in the pomegranate bar.

5. Please give a simple description of the color i.e. L*, a* and b* values.

I strongly suggest language (English) editing throughout the manuscript.

Reviewer #5: Pomegranate peel, often considered a waste product, is gaining attention for its bioactive compounds. The study used well-established methods, emphasizing the potential application of pomegranate peel as a functional food ingredient. Therefore, the study is novel and relevant. However, manuscript should be improved:

1- The study mentions sourcing pomegranate peel, jaggery, and oats from local markets. However, there’s no indication of control over the quality and variability of these raw materials, which could affect reproducibility and consistency in the results. Were the pomegranates from a single variety or region?

2- While moisture content is measured for pomegranate peel powder, it would be valuable to also assess the moisture stability of the final product (bars). High moisture content could affect shelf life, microbial growth, and texture.

3- Storage and stability, microbial load and toxicity should be studied.

4- The manuscript lacks experimental design, details, and clarifications of the methods used.

5- The statistical analysis was not clarified.

6- The washing, drying, and grinding processes of the pomegranate peel could impact its bioactive compounds. Did the drying temperature affect the phenolic content? More details on the temperature and conditions used should be incorporated in the manuscript.

7- The abstract lacks specificity in results, vague statistical analysis. The abstract did not specify the evaluated parameters.

8- Repetition in the content of the results and discussion. Discussion lacks in-depth interpretation: How do the higher fibre, phenolic, and antioxidant levels in pomegranate peel powder impact the functional and health aspects of the final product? Why is T3 (15% pomegranate peel) the most acceptable in sensory evaluation? Is there a trade-off between nutritional enhancement and sensory properties (taste or texture)?

9- findings should be integrated with the final enriched bars.

10- More detail on how the addition of pomegranate peel powder influenced the bar composition is needed.

11- more discussion and interpretation should be done on sensory evaluation.

12- The manuscript could benefit from more introductory statements along the texts.

Reviewer #6: Abstract: I don't see the 'why' for this study. There are plenty of nutritional bars that exist, what is the benefit that this nutritional bar will have over others?

Introduction:

1. I would change the opening sentence. It won't be perceived well by certain audiences that are reading this.

2. I would look into costs of foods whether it be from the countries of the authors or from others. Cost in the US (especially pomegranate) are costly and would not necessarily be a solution for food disparities.

3. Are there any clinical trials that can be included as reference for oats? This would gain better emphasis on the use of it.

4. The paragraph starting with "The consumption of snacks" should be taken out as it's not adding it in the placement of where it is at in the introduction. It can be moved to another place but that's for readability.

Methods

1. Specificity of the product should be given as much as possible (for example, are the oats pressed or are they raw?)

2. Please mention the country for Faisalabad

3. Please state what AOAC is. There are no explanation of this acronym before.

4. Was the method mentioned was the one that was followed? Were there any modifications?

5. Is there a way to have a figure of the workflow? It'll help with the explanation that is given in this section.

6. No mentions of any statistical methods used with the analysis.

Results and Discussion

I think this was the best part of the paper and do not see much edits needed in this section.

Conclusion

Not much here as it is short.

Overall, this is a unique publication and would like to see the edits metioned before being accepted.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr. Arnab Banerjee

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: Yes: Amel Elbasyouni

Reviewer #6: Yes: Susan Egbert

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-32412.docx

DEVELOPMENT AND NUTRITIONAL EVALUATION OF POMEGRANATE PEEL ENRICHED BARS

PONE-D-24-32412R1

Dear Dr. Kinki,

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Kind regards,

Lakshmanan Govindan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept

Reviewers' comments: