Edible roses as novel food with healthy value

Rosa sp. is a very ancient genus belonging to Rosaceae family, including around 150-300 botanical species and thousands of hybrids and cultivars. The natural habitat of wild roses extends in Asia, Europe and North America. Roses were appreciated since periods of Egyptian, Persian, and Greek, due to their scent, aesthetic and decorative value. The traditional use of roses as food ingredients and medical products was reported since Roman time and european Middle Age. Nowadays it’s common to include flowers petals in different sweet and savoury recipes. The ANTEA Project (UE Interreg-Alcotra IT-FR n.1139) aimed to extend the edible flowers consumption as functional food by the increase of the species number used for the supply chain. The creation of a high-quality flowers production has to take into account different flowering period in order to guarantee constant supply to consumers all year around.Therefore a further goal was focused on post-harvest storage and flowers transformation. 35 edible flowers were selected for their characteristics, and two of them belong to Rosa genus: Rosa × centifolia (hybrid, ongoing botanical classification) and Rosa ‘Tango’, also called Rose de Vence. The two rose plants were cultivated in greenhouse at Chambre d’Agriculture des Alpes-Maritimes (CREAM), Nice (France). Fresh freeze-dried petals and their infusion (freeze-dried flowers in boiling water for 8 min) were investigated in order to detect levels of healthful and antioxidant molecules, such as polyphenols and other antioxidant molecules. The highest total polyphenols content (TPC) and antioxidant activity were quantified in dried Rosa × centifolia petals. TPC was comparable in fresh petals and infusion of dried Rose de Vence petals, even if the latter had lower antioxidant activity.