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Grape and passion fruit powdered soft drinks: ascorbic acid content and contribution to Recommended Nutrient Intake

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The average global consumption of powdered soft drinks was approximately 700.000 tons in 2015, supported by their low prices, quick prepare and high yield. These powdered soft drinks can be fortified with vitamins such as the vitamin C, which is an antioxidant enrolled in the immune system, and maintenance of cellular integrity. Since vitamin C is essential for human health, this study evaluated its content in powdered soft drinks and correlated it to the international Required Nutrient Intakes (RNI). Thus, 67 samples of grape and passion fruit powdered soft drinks fortified with vitamin C, from 12 brands (2 to 3 batches), were collected in the market of Campinas, SP, Brazil. Their ascorbic acid content was analyzed, in triplicates, by a titrimetric method (AOAC, 1984), modified by Benassi & Antunes (1988), showing no significant variance between flavors, but a higher content for the passion fruit flavor (1.68-5.93 mg/g), while grape presented 0.60-5.23 mg/g. Among the batches, there were low relative standard deviation (RSD) for ascorbic acid determination: 0.16-8.1% for grape and 0-18.8% for passion fruit, the same among brands of passion fruit flavor (0.001-1.5%) and grape (0.02-0.4%). Besides, 75% of the samples required higher consumption of the grape powered soft drink (1.9 to 16 cups of 200 mL) than the passion fruit one (1.5 to 5.8 cups of 200 mL) to supply the RNI (45 mg/day) of ascorbic acid for adults, which could be explained by unmeasured amounts of ascorbic acid added during inline enrichment between the flavors. Thus, this study provides that different lots of grape and passion fruit powdered soft drinks can present different vitamin C contents within the same brand, since their industrial processing and formulation vary. Notwithstanding, few 200mL-cups of them can supply the vitamin C RNI for an adult, in association with a balanced diet.