Amazonian fruits, sources of new beverages

Beverages made from emergent fruits have increased in the global tropical belt, attracting consumer attention in recent years.
Recent results have shown that asai (Euterpe precatoria), copoazu (Theobroma grandiflorum Wild Ex Spreng Schum), moriche (Mauritia flexuosa), cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum) and arazá (Eugenia stipitata), among others, are good ingredients for smoothies, clarified beverages, and carbonated or dehydrated drinks.
These fruits exhibit two special characteristics: technological challenges in proficient processing and phytotherapeutic components that require preservation during processing.
Commonly, water activity increases deterioration in fresh fruit and pulp; consequently, dehydration appears to be a solution for preventing quality loss.
After fruit pulp characterization, our efforts are focused on clarifying a standardized process and preserving antioxidant capacity.
Usually, pulp treatments involve enzymatic treatments that reduce viscosity which are applied before dry spraying.
Technological treatments applied to moriche pulp combined with arazá or cocona fruit increase its general acceptation particularly due to viscosity of the final formulation without noticeable differences in antioxidant capacity or nutritional compounds.
The combination of double proportion of moriche versus cocona fruit weight in the drinks was the best mixture preliminary selected for future beverage developments.

II International Symposium on Beverage Crops

W. Quintero, D. Guerrero, R. Diaz, M.S. Hernández, J.P. Fernández-Trujillo

antioxidant capacity, carotenoids, fruit juice, fruit processing, palm fruits, polyphenols

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1274.16