Wednesday, August 1, 2012: 3:15 PM
Sevilla
Acerola or Barbados cherry (Malpighia emarginata) is characterized by high vitamin C content, which is many times higher than other fruits that could be considered good sources, such as guava, cashew apple and citrus. Besides its consumption as a fruit, acerola presents a wide potential to be used in different products rich in bioactive compounds, as it has been described in several works. The species, originally from the Antilles, can be found from South Texas, through Mexico and Central America to northern South America and throughout the Caribbean, being Brazil nowadays the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter. For this reason in the last twenty years were developed and adapted several acerola varieties in the country. In this study were analyzed bioactive compounds (vitamin C, anthocyanins, yellow flavonoids, carotenoids, and polyphenols) and antioxidant activity in edible portion of fruits from different acerola varieties (AC26, AC69, AC71, Apodi, Barbados, Cereja, Flor Branca, Florida Sweet, FP19, Frutacor, I6 / 2, II 47 / 1, Mineira, Monami, Okinawa, Roxinha, and Sertaneja) growing under traditional and/or organic cultivation. All fruits were harvested at the same stage of maturity, i.e. ripe. The acid ascorbic content ranged from 350.45 to 2530 mg/100 g. The overall average for ascorbic acid content was 1367.47mg/100 g. Besides vitamin C, acerola fruits were rich in polyphenols (from 560.59 to 1803.11 mg/100 g). Acerola fruits from varieties under organic cultivation showed the highest levels of these bioactive compounds and consequently for antioxidant activity. Additionally, fruits from the majority of the varieties could be considered as good source of anthocyanins, flavonoids and carotenoids. In general the results show that acerola is an excellent dietary source of natural antioxidants, not only vitamin C, and their consumption as fresh and processed fruits should be encouraged.