Potential Relevance of Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Peel in the Nutrition, Health, and Quality Products of Poultry

Poultry farmers constantly source for alternative feed additives for feeding poultry birds to improve the quality and health benefits of their meat and egg. It is common knowledge that synthetic feed additives (antibiotic growth promoters) are accompanied by some limitations. These limitations include amongst others, the detrimental residual effects accompanying the consumption of the meat and egg products of poultry birds fed antibiotic growth promoters. Also, they cause resistance to some bacteria both in poultry and humans. Recently, increased efforts have been put into utilizing plant-based feed additives in the nutrition of poultry birds, due to their minimal toxicity concerns and holistic functional attributes. Pomegranate is an important fruit that cannot be overlooked among the spectrum of natural feed additives. The potential of pomegranate fruit peel to replace in-feed antibiotic growth promoters in poultry nutrition is quite promising. The current review provides an overview of the usefulness and potential utilization of pomegranate peel as a natural and alternative growth promoter in the nutrition of poultry birds. The pomegranate fruit peel promotes growth, stimulates immune responses, enhances the shelf-life of meat, improves egg quality, increases nutrient release. It also improves bone quality, and ensures the release of odorous gases from poultry manure, which may be linked to its rich antioxidant and bioactive phenol and tannin constituents. Tannin is one of the anti-nutrients that limits the performance of poultry when it is included in the diet. Despite huge benefits of pomegranate inclusion in poultry performance, its tannin content may be a source of worry and these concerns needs to be addressed through further research in order to maximize the full potentials of pomegranate. However, pomegranate shows potential to provide nourishment to poultry birds and positively enhance the health indicators of human consumers of the products (meat and egg).