Proceedings of International Congress on Bioactive Compounds and International Workshop on Bioactive Compounds
Proceedings of 2nd International Congress on Bioactive Compounds

Cereja-do-rio-grande (CRG), araçauna (AR) and grumixama (GMX) are purple-red Brazilian fruits which have abundant phenolic compounds, especially anthocyanins, but are little studied. Anthocyanins are bioactive compounds that have high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capacity. Anthocyanin-rich beverages are currently attracting global interest for their potential for use as functional beverage. The objective of this work was to measure the total phenolics and antioxidant activity of hot and cold infusions of Brazilian berries and to evaluate its stability during storage. CRG, AR, and GMX infusions were obtained from dried pulp+peel fruits in water at room temperature (22 ºC) for 2 hours (cold infusion) and in boiling water (90ºC) for 7 minutes (hot infusion), both in the proportion of 2g/200mL. One sample of each infusion was stored at 4°C and another at 22°C for three days. All the analysis were performed at the day of preparation, 24h and 48h after preparation. Antioxidant capacity was evaluated by the ORAC and ABTS methods. The reducing capacity and the anthocyanin values were determined by the Folin and the differential pH methods, respectively. Finally, the color was evaluated through CIELAB. As results, the extraction under 90 ºC is more efficient to obtain anthocyanins and phenolic compounds of the fruits when compared to 22 ºC. And the storage at 4 °C resulted in lower loss of these compounds than at 22 ºC. Besides the AR and GMX hot infusions demonstrated the highest content of phenolic compounds (0,326 mg GAE/mL) and anthocyanins (0.112 mg/mL), respectively, the CRG hot infusion presented the best antioxidant capacity (3213.39 uL TE/mL). Probably other compounds with antioxidant potential beyond the analyzed are present in this extract. During 48h of storage, a significant reduction in all parameters was observed reaching 58.3% of anthocyanins, 10.1 % of phenolic compounds and 27.8 % of antioxidant activity from CRG cold infusion storage at 22 ºC. Color was also altered during the storage. Anthocyanins confer purple-red color of fruits and are very susceptible to light oxidation which should resulted in the changes observed. It is concluded that the Brazilian berry fruits hot infusions are good sources of phenolic compounds like anthocyanins. Moreover, storage conditions including less light incidence and refrigeration temperature have a great influence on the stability of these compounds and the color.