Estudos sobre caracterização físico-química, compostos bioativos e atividade antioxidante da fruta pão (Artocarpus altilis)

Abstract

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is described as an important food source in the diet of several countries, being considered a valuable food with the potential to positively impact food security in the world. Breadfruit is a fruit of Asian origin with considerable economic and food importance for the region, due to its exceptional nutritional characteristics that bring health benefits to its consumers. In Brazil, however, the fruit is little known and hence underused. Few scientific works emphasizing the technological characteristics of bread fruit processing have been reported in the literature, which motivated the realization of the present research that studied its physicochemical characteristics, bioactive compounds and thier antioxidante activity in the fruit, fresh bread and its dehydrated products. The fruits used were obtained from domestic orchards at the green and ripe stages of ripeness. The analyses performed were: pH, total soluble solids, total titratable acidity, water activity, ash content, lipids, protein, moisture and color (L*, a*, b*, C* and ºHue). Phenolic compounds, flavonoids contents and antioxidant activity was measured by ABTS, DPPH and FRAP assays. Descriptive data were analyzed by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Tukey mean test (p=5%). The results of the physicochemical analyses showed that drying to obtain bread fruit flour is a viable alternative, which provides a nutritional increase and a more attractive color to the product, minimizes post-harvest losses, in addition to being a technology with high potential for the availability of new food alternatives. Comparing the two extracts, the antioxidant activity was higher in the ethanolic extracts of breadfruit flour; this result may be related to the maturation stage and the concentration of its components. For the phenolic and flavonoid bioactive compounds, there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the samples T3 e T4 evidencing the aqueous extract.