Compostos bioativos e capacidade antioxidante em frutos de araçá, noni e romã.

Abstract

The consumption of fresh fruits is increasing worldwide due to factors that lead to changes in eating habits of people, such as health care and nutritional aspects of food. This study aimed to evaluate the quality, quantify the bioactive compounds and the antioxidant capacity of fruits: guava, noni and pomegranate. The work was developed in the Laboratory of Technology of Plant Products of CCTA / UFCG, Campus de Pombal - PB. Fruits of strawberry guava, noni and pomegranate were from plantations located in different cities (Areia-PB, Fortaleza-CE and Sousa-PB, respectively). The fruits were harvested directly in the crown of the plant, taking as harvest index coloring of the fruit. Four five maturity stages were evaluated for the fruits of guava and noni, respectively. Physical assessments, physicochemical, bioactive compounds and antioxidant capacity in fruits were performed. The experimental design was completely randomized. The results were subjected to analysis of variance, detecting significant for the F test, the average effect were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability. The physico-chemical characteristics of soluble solids, total soluble sugars, reducing sugars and SS / TA ratio increased with advancing maturity for the three studied fruits. For bioactive compounds: the ascorbic acid content of the fruits of noni showed a significant increase with advancing maturity; the anthocyanin content of pomegranate increased with maturation, as well as phenolic compounds of guava showed maximum values for stage I and decreased by more than 50% in stage IV, the fruits of noni and pomegranate also had representative values for phenolic compounds. The fruits studied exhibited antioxidant property however the action was different between them, guava showed the greatest ability to reduce DPPH radical and had reduced capacity with advancing maturity, noni showed opposite effect by increasing the reducing power with the development of pomegranate fruit and did not vary between the maturity stages. Concluding that the fruits evaluated showers considerables amounts of biologically active compounds may be a good source of natural antioxidants for the human diet.