Quantificação de alguns compostos bioativos das pitayas de polpas branca e vermelha (Cereus undatus, sinonímia: Hylocereus guatemalensis, H. undatus)

Abstract

The pitaya or Cereus undatus pitaya or, synonymy: Hylocereus guatemalensis, H.undatus is exotic fruit consumption and slightly increasing in our country. The functional assignments given to this fruit, common sense encourages the study of their physical, chemical and microbiological. It should be noted that the fruits are primary sources of several vitamins and other bioactive compounds, for example, phenolic fibers, and sugars. The intake of these compounds increases the immunity of individuals, leading to improved levels of health, physical and mental performance. The reference values for these nutrients pitaya, also, are unknown to the general public, as this is a fruit intake of a wealthy class, for its price is too high for our Brazilian standards. In food matrices are very complex, given its inherent characteristics. Thus, there are several techniques used for quantitative analysis of bioactive compounds, among them, have a High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and UV-visible spectrophotometry. The objective of this study is to quantify the presence of vitamin C, anthocyanins and sugars in pitayas white and red pulp by HPLC, as well as to determine, although the content of antioxidant activity by the method of capturing the radical 2,2 '- azinobis ( 3-etilbenzenotiazolina-6-sulfonic acid - ABTS), soluble solids (° Brix) is determined in a digital refractometer, as well as acidity and pH. The soluble solids found can confirm that the samples of red pitaya have higher sugar content than the white pulp. The pH and total acidity (g citric acid/100g fruit), should also be monitored and analyzed, possibly under conditions of controlled cultivation of this food because it is an exotic fruit and consumption in our country recently. As for the results of anthocyanins, because it is a dye that rapidly degrades, its presence became insignificant, being found only in the halo of red pulp pitaya, requiring further analysis and monitoring standards in a more specific. There was a low antioxidant activity in the samples, as well as its content of vitamin C, these values should be found, first, the storage time, which decreases the levels of these analytes.