Bioactive potential from juçara by-product

Juçara (Euterpe edulis Martius), a typical palm of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, produces fruits rich in antioxidant compounds, anthocyanins in particular. Although juçara pulp may present low sensory acceptance due to its low soluble solids content and characteristic flavor, its use as a functional ingredient in new formulations has been encouraged. Juçara fruits are mainly commercialized as frozen pulp, which has been used as an ingredient in new formulations such as juices blends, ice creams and others. The centrifugation of juçara pulp generates a by-product rich in anthocyanins and other phenolic compounds, which are generally discarded to the environment. Furthermore, the anthocyanins antioxidant capacity justifies the relevance of an investigation, from industrial point of view, for juçara by-product recovering. This raw-material could be used by the food and/or cosmetic industries as a bioactive ingredient. Thus, this work addresses featuring the juçara by-product with different lipid contents as its bioactive properties. For this purpose, this residue was dried (DR) in a tray dryer at 50 ºC for 24 h. Hereafter, oil extraction was performed at 25 ºC by feeding the dried residue into an expeller press. Then, the first pressed cake (CPDR) was again pressed at 50 ºC, to obtain the more defatted cake (HPDR) resulting in three samples with different lipid contents: DR (30%), CPDR (12%) and HPDR (9%). Then, these samples were subjected to total phenolic compounds, total monomeric anthocyanins and antioxidant capacity assays being all data expressed in dry weight. The main results showed that sample with lower lipid content presented higher anthocyanin and total phenolic compounds contents and antioxidant capacity evaluated by DPPH assay (34 mg cyanidin/100 g, 689 mg gallic acid/100 g and 18 µmol Trolox/g, respectively) as compared with higher lipid content sample (23 cyanidin/100 g, 584 mg gallic acid/100 g, 10 µmol Trolox/g, respectively). Additionally, the sample with lower lipid content presented antioxidant capacity in the same range of the sample with intermediate lipid content (32 cyanidin/100 g, 630 mg gallic acid/100 g, 17 µmol Trolox/g, respectively) samples. It is possible to conclude that the juçara by-product showed great bioactive potential, which may be exploited for industrial use as functional ingredient in food in cosmetic formulation.