Nutritional and functional potential of pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) pulp and pequi (Caryocar brasiliense Camb.) peel flours

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to develop and characterize pumpkin pulp flour (Cucurbita moschata) and pequi peel flour (Caryocar brasiliense Camb.) in order to evaluate their nutritional and functional potential for the development of healthier products. The flours were developed and characterized by proximal composition, sodium, total sugars, phenolic compounds and carotenoids content, and in vitro antioxidant capacity by ABTS, FRAP and b-carotene/linoleic acid system methods. The means and the standard deviations were calculated for all data. Pearson correlation analysis between phenolics and antioxidant activities results was carried out, using SPSS Statistics 17.0 software. The pumpkin pulp flour presented high levels of dietary fiber (21.95 g/100 g), total sugars (51.88 g/100 g), protein (11.08 g/100 g) and carotenoids (249.04 lg/g), low levels of sodium (27.28 mg/100 g), and high antioxidant capacity by the b-carotene/linoleic acid system (73.00% protection). The pequi peel flour presented high levels of dietary fiber (42.09 g/100 g) and phenolic compounds (20,893.73 mg GAE/100 g), low levels of sodium (22.84 mg/100 g), and high antioxidant capacity by ABTS (2105.18 lM trolox/g), FRAP (6292.11 lM ferrous sulfate/g) and b-carotene/linoleic acid system (92.94% protection) methods. Both flours can be used for the development of healthy foods.

Comparative In Vitro Antioxidant Capacity and Terpenoid Profiling of Pumpkin Fruit Pulps from a Serbian Cucurbita maxima and Cucurbita moschata Breeding Collection

“…It is well-known that carotenoids are generally very unstable molecules. Therefore, storage, sample preparation, and other unidentified factors could account for these not significant correlation values [23,45]. However, it is possible that the different phytocompounds as discerned by the discriminant terpenoids identified by the VIP approach reported in Tables 1 and 2, on both the origin of the pumpkin accessions and on the two pumpkin species, respectively, could contribute to the in vitro antioxidant capacity values reported.…”

“…The total carotenoid content in C. maxima is usually higher than that found in C. moschata and C. pepo. In C. maxima, β-carotene, lutein, and violaxanthin are the major carotenoids; in C. pepo, the two dominant detected carotenoids are lutein and β-carotene, whereas in C. moschata, α-carotene and β-carotene are the major carotenoids [23]. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the antioxidant capacity of pumpkin fruits reported (mainly evaluated by using in vitro spectrophotometric assays) varies according to the antioxidant assay used.…”

Physical, physiological, physicochemical and nutritional characterization of pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) in postharvest stage cultivated in Antioquia-Colombia

“…For the day 0, it was found that the whole fruit with peel presented an average penetration force of 93.29±5.85 N and for fruit without peel, that value is 80.62±6.52 N, showing a higher resistance to penetration in fruits with peel. This is due to materials such as cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and other high molecular weight polysaccharides that make up the peel (Bemfeito et al, 2020). In the pulp, a slightly more accelerated decreasing behavior was found than that in the peel, showing a…”

Vegetable Soups and Creams: Raw Materials, Processing, Health Benefits, and Innovation Trends

“…The total phenol content, flavonoid content and antioxidant activity in pumpkins depend on cultivar variety and solvents for extraction. The total phenol content from C. maxima of pulp and peel show 13.92–33.48 mg GAE/100 g fw (water or 50:50 acetone–ethanol) and 496.97 mg GAE/100 g dw for the same variety, total flavonoid content of 3.79–11.72 mg quercetin equivalent/100 g fw (water or 50:50 acetone–ethanol) [ 46 , 47 ]. The antioxidant activity of 71.1–387 µg trolox equivalent (TE)/g sample measure by DPPH method (Priori et al, 2106); 78.21 µM TE/g dw of sample measure by ABTS method and 69.37 µM Fe 2 SO 4 /g of dw sample, measure by FRAP method [ 46 ].…”