Corante natural de flor comestível (Clitória ternatea): extração e avaliação da estabilidade

Abstract

Color is an important attribute in the acceptance of a food. Artificial dyes are more stable than natural dyes and are therefore widely used. Combined with the growing interest in obtaining and applying natural pigments in food systems, studies on viable sources as well as obtaining and characterizing formulations of these dyes are necessary. With the growth and development of the food market, edible flowers have come to the fore and their production has been driven by consumers who want taste, health and exuberance in food. Butterfly pea has several chemical constituents with pharmacological effects, as well as its high anthocyanin content and high antioxidant capacity. In this work, the edible flower Butterfly pea was used for the extraction and evaluation of stability and technological viability in obtaining food colors as well as to evaluate some of its nutraceutical characteristics. The obtained extract was concentrated to a volume of 20% of its original volume and subjected to stability testing with light and dark buffered samples at room temperature (± 25°C) for five weeks. The anthocyanin content was periodically quantified, as well as analysis of total phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity by ABTS and FRAP methods and colorimetric analysis. The samples submitted to light showed greater degradation of the analyzed compounds. As anthocyanins suffered more pronounced degradation in the presence of light, with a half-life of 533.19h, for pH pH 2, loss of anthocyanin pigment in less hours than extractions at pH 3 (595.10h), pH 4 (385.09h) and pH 5 (364.81h) kept away from light. Regarding the colorimetric stability analysis, there was significant color degradation for the extracts submitted to light. And the extracts without light incidence during the stability evaluation showed less color variation, thus affirming the alternation of the AE* criterion.