Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Proceedings of 14 SLACA - Latin American Symposium on Food Science

The Cerrado biome produces a cactus of the Opuntia variety with potential for application in the food industry. The objective of this study was to submit the cactus cladodes to drying in an oven, analyzing the drying rate at the critical moisture level, final moisture and total phenolic content. Samples with an initial moisture content of 88.10±0.27% were selected, sanitized and cut manually with an average size of 94.20±6.16mm in height, 72.00±5.56mm in width and 111.40±9.17mm in length. Drying was carried out at temperatures of 80, 100 and 120°C for 4 hours being weighed every 5 min up to 60 min and every 10 min between 60 and 240 min. The final moisture of the samples was 37.88±12.02, 12.91±2.58 and 6.58±0.09%, with drying rate at the critical moisture level of 0.54, 0.74 and 1.05kg of H2O/s.m2 for temperatures of 80, 100 and 120°C, respectively. The in natura cladodes pulp presented content of 976.93±6.83mg of gallic acid/100grams of solids of total phenolic content, noting that the increase in drying temperature resulted in the loss of phenolic compounds through thermal degradation or polymerization and deterioration of chlorophyll. The dehydrated samples have a total phenolic content of 620.99±11.27, 445.49±6.86 and 467.19±10.19mg of gallic acid/100 grams of solids for drying temperatures of 80.100 and 120°C. A maximum content of 0.18kg of H2O/kg of solids (<15% moisture) was obtained for the sample dehydrated at 100°C/240min and the sample dehydrated at 120°C reached the stipulated in 150min since the sample dried at 80°C did not reach the minimum required. It is concluded that temperatures of 100 and 120°C were the best temperatures for drying the cactus cladodes, resulting in the production of cactus flour with potential for application in foods as a source of unconventional dietary fiber and mucilage profile.