Propriedades antioxidativas e morfológicas da Terminalia catappa linn em diferentes estágios de maturação

Abstract

Terminalia catappa Linn is a fruit of the family Combretaceae and has been researched as an antioxidant agent acting in the prevention of various pathologies. In this sense, the objective of this research was to characterize and compare the content of bioactive compounds and the morphological structure of the fruits in purple and yellow ripening stages. The applied methodology followed the standards established by the Adolfo Lutz Institute and international analysis parameters for biocompounds analysis. The results show that the hydrogen potential and total soluble solids do not present significant differences at 5% level. But they differ in their titratable total acidity content. Their contents in bioactive compounds show significant difference (p≤0.05) in the contents of total phenolics (142.33 and 123.44 (mg GAE/g), Vitamin C (78.83 and 37.04 mg / 100ml) and Anthocyanins 16.29 and 2.64 mg/100ml). However, they show no significant difference in Flavonoid content (43.52 and 41.95 mg/100 ml) respectively for purple and yellow castanhola flour maturation. Morphological structures show spongylooking granules and fibrillar bundle structures. All the findings of this research show a food potential for application of this fruit in human diets.