VITAMIN C CONTENT IN ACEROLA PULPS

Abstract

With the objective of determining the amount of vitamin “C” degraded during freezing storage of Malpighia glabra L. pulps, samples were semi-industrially processed, frozen and stored at –18 ºC. Fifty percent of the processed pulp was stored without passing through a thermal process. The fifty percent left was heated up to 85 ºC before freezing, in order to inactivate ascorbic acid oxidase, the degradative enzyme of ascorbic acid. The amount of ascorbic acid was established by volumetric method developed by Tillmans with endophenol. Analyses were carried out at zero time, weekly in the first month, biweekly in the second month, and monthly from third to twelfth month. Vitamin “C” amount of heated and no-heated pulps decreased from 2079.39 to 1165.64 mg of vitamin “C”/100 mL of pulp, and from 2079.39 to 1288.34 mg of vitamin “C”/100 mL of pulp, respectively.