Bioactive organic and inorganic compounds in Latin American foods and plants: A review

Abstract

Latin America contains some of the world's most diverse agroecosystems and food crops, ranging from major staples such as maize and potato to bioactive-rich matrices such as quinoa, amaranth, chia, cacao, acai, and yerba mate. These foods contain organic compounds, including phenolics, carotenoids, tocopherols, saponins, alkaloids, and protein-derived peptides, together with inorganic elements that may be nutritionally essential or toxic depending on concentration, chemical form, and exposure context. Previous reviews have often treated nutritional bioactivity and toxicological contamination as separate topics. This critical review instead evaluates them through an integrated benefit-risk framework that considers crop genetics, ecosystem variation, processing, bio-accessibility, analytical comparability, and dietary exposure. The synthesis shows that many reported antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, cardiometabolic, and neuroprotective effects remain strongest at the in vitro or animal-model level, whereas human dose-response evidence is limited and often confounded by matrix complexity. Conversely, toxicological evidence for arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, pesticide residues, and emerging contaminants is increasingly supported by environmental monitoring and risk-modeling studies, although biomonitoring and longitudinal dietary-exposure data remain scarce. The review identifies four major gaps: limited data on interactions between nutrients, antinutrients, and contaminants; insufficient harmonization of LC-MS/MS, HRMS, ICP-MS/ICP-OES, and NMR-based workflows; weak conversion of compositional data into realistic intake and exposure estimates; and underuse of cultivar-, landrace-, and ecosystem-specific comparisons. A coordinated research agenda combining original analytical studies, exposure modeling, controlled human studies, and equitable integration of Indigenous knowledge is needed to transform Latin American biodiversity into safe, evidence-based nutritional and functional-food innovation.