BREWER'S RESIDUAL YEAST IMPREGNATED WITH VITAMIN C: BIOACCESSIBILITY

Nutrients have been studied for decades demonstrating their potential and importance for human health, including ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Vitamin C helps health due to its antioxidant capacity, preventing diseases such as cancer and improving the immune system. However, despite the benefits, these compounds are very unstable, making their ingestion or presence in food difficult. Aiming to solve this problem, processes such as microencapsulation have emerged, where techniques such as biosorption, coupled with encapsulation, have become scientific for use together. Biosorption is defined as a physical-chemical process where sorbate interacts with a biological matrix like vitamins. Together, encapsulation proposes the use of a by-product from the brewing industry Saccharomyces pastorianus as a vitamin carrier, adding value to this widely available by-product. Subsequently, the objective of impregnating these yeasts is to carry out studies of the vitamin C release profile, determined in the oral, gastric and intestinal phases. In view of the above, this project intends to study the release profile in the oral, gastric and intestinal phases (bioaccessibility), of yeast cells impregnated with vitamins C. Thus, the study carried out achieved the INFOGEST protocol, at the end of each phase the Vitamin levels were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), in which the oral phase lasted 2 minutes while the gastric and intestinal phases lasted 2 hours. After the tests carried out, a release of 28.13% of vitamin C was obtained in the oral phase, 16.34% in the gastric phase and 3.71% in the intestinal phase. This demonstrates the potential of Saccharomyces pastorianus yeasts as vitamin supplements for application as encapsulating material, in addition to having a low added value and high nutritional value.