Otimização e comparação dos processos de desidratação osmotica a vacuo e a pressão ambiente de pseudofruto de caju (Anacardium occidentale L)

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2000

RESUMO

Despite being considered as an important producer of tropical fruits, Brazil presents a food wastage rate exceeding 35% of its production. This fact justifies research into low cost preservation methods leading to stable products and conserving, with only slight alterations, the nutritive and organoleptic characterisitics, aiming possibly at exportation. The technology of osmotic dehydration under vacuum allows for the use of low temperatures, obtaining good quality dehydrated fruits using a smaller volume of the osmotic agent for the same rate of water removal, thus being a promising alternative as a means of food conservation specifically in the production of good quality dehydrated goods. The raw material used was the cashew pseudofruit, A. occidenta/e L. (clone: CCPO76), since from the socio-economic point of view the cultivation of cashew represents a very important activity due to the great number of people involved, not only in the agricultural production but also in its industrial transformation in the poorer regions of the country. However currently this represents the exploitation of less than 10% of the production of the pulp, since the nut has a much greater value than the pseudofruit. In the osmotic dehydration process, both the vacuum and atmospheric pressure systems were optimized using response surface methodology, the time/temperature parameters aiming at minimizing the incorporation of solids and maximizing the loss of moisture and weight. For the vacuum system, equipment with natural circulation was used, armed with temperature and pressure registers, vacuum pump and heating and refrigeration systems. The equipment was specially constructed for this purpose. For osmotic dehydration at atmospheric pressure, a system was constructed including a polypropylene tank, peristaltic pump, heating system and temperature register. The osmotic agent used was 65°Brix sucrose and 0.2% sodium metabisulphite was used as anti-oxidant. The optimized conditions chosen to validate the experimental models were: atmospheric pressure 40°C/225 min. and vacuum 35°C/180 min., 40°C/100 min. Under these conditions the following changes were registered, respectively, moisture losses to the order of 36.43; 35.69 and 34.58%, weight losses to the order of 29.50; 30.79 and 29.78% and an incorporation of solids to the order of 9.23; 4.50 and 4.12%. The vacuum process for osmotic dehydration was shown to be more efficient, removing greater amounts of water and incorportaing less solids, using lower temperatures and shorter times and presenting smaller losses of ascorbic acid than the atmospheric pressure process. In the sensory evaluation, the products from both types of process showed mean acceptance values for the attributes of aroma, texture, flavour and appearance in the categories of liked slightly and liked moderately on the hedonic scale, with statistically significant differences only for the attribute flavour, indicating that the characteristics of the products arising from both processes were very similar. The products obtained under the optimized conditions chosen were submitted to physico-chemical, microbiological and instumental colour determinations

ASSUNTO(S)

caju vacuo secagem desidratação

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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