Acidulants in Tropical Fruit Pulp: Physicochemical and Sensory Changes

Abstract

The processing of pulp fruit helps to reduce the waste of raw fruits not traded, making them available in intercrop periods and in difficult access areas, ensuring quality of structure and maturation. When processed, some fruit characteristics are lost and its composition is changed due to factors such as oxidation, degradation and contamination. Because of this, Brazilian law provides the use of acidulants as flavor enhancer and pH broker, with effect on food microbiota. The study evaluated acidulants (lemon juice and solutions of citric and ascorbic acid in 1 % (m/v) proportion), with insertion of 0.1 % (m_acidulant/m_pulp) in the pulp, the physicochemical properties (soluble solids content (SSC), pH, acidity, total solids, total sugars and vitamin C), said identity and quality standards for fruit pulps, sensory analysis and frequency of consumption (intent consumer’s purchase) to 7 pulp flavors (pineapple, acerola, cashew, caja, graviola, mango and passion fruit). The samples possessed some parameters out of the specification required by the law, being the greatest concern graviola and cashew pulps, in acidity, SSC and total solids. The sensory evaluations and the attitude test showed similarities in some acidulants choice. The pulps of passion fruit, graviola and mango, without acidulants, presented adequate sensory characteristics. The caja, cashew, pineapple and acerola pulps indicated the need for acidulants addition, such as ascorbic acid to the pulp of acerola and lemon juice or citric acid to the pineapple pulp. In the caja and cashew pulps, the presence of any from the studied acidulants, lemon juice, citric acid or ascorbic acid were important, since they presented similar results for sensory perception. The concordance coefficient in the attitude of purchasing test was relatively low due to the use of judges not trained in sensory analysis. For flavor attribute, was noticed that the samples do not differ significantly at 5% level, except for the commercial cashew pulp and with the addition of lemon juice and citric acid.