Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Anais do 14 SLACA - Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciência de Alimentos

The Amazon Biome, the largest remaining block of tropical forests in the world, has been suffering threats to its conservation. In this context, the challenge is to transform the forest resources into viable and sustainable opportunities. This could be reach by increasing the technical knowledge about biodiversity species that could add value to new products. This work was aimed at evaluating properties of blends of fats from Amazonian fruits and seeds with soybean oil seeking for new possibilities in food products formulation. Therefore, blends of Murumuru (Astrocaryum murumuru) (MR), Tucuma (Astrocaryum vulgare) (TC) and Bacuri (Platonia insiginis) (BC) were produced with Soybean oil (OS) in the proportions of 25:50, 50:50 and 75:25. Their Solid Fat Content (SFC), Crystallization and Melting profile by Calorimetry (DSC) were investigated. Fats increased the saturated fatty acid profile of the blends (increase in C12:0 for TC and MR blends, and C16:0 for BC), increasing the SFC when mixed with OS. TC and MR fats showed similar crystallization/melting behavior while BC and OS showed two well-defined crystallization/melting fractions. In fact, TC and MR are mostly composed of trissaturated TAGs such as LLL, LLM and MML, while BC presents a mixture of saturated and unsaturated compounds. Increasing temperatures led to large reductions in SFC. At 35°C, all mixtures, except for BC, are completely liquid. The symmetrical and large chains TAGs of BC such as PPP and POP, provides to their blends more hardness at room temperature. The BC:S mixture (25:75) showed to be ideal for use in refrigerated margarines: their mild SFC at 10°C could ensures creaminess at cold temperatures; at 35°C, the presence of solids could ensure thermal resistance. The SFC profile of TC and MR blends with OS are comparable to several hard-fats used to replace partially or fully hydrogenated fats.