CARLA ADRIANA FERRARI ARTILHA

Título da Dissertação: DIFERENTES PROCESSAMENTOS DE MOLHO DE PIMENTA JALAPENHO (Capsicum annuum var. annuum “jalapenho”)

Orientadora: Profa. Dra. Grasiele Scaramal Madrona

Data da Defesa:26/06/2021

RESUMO GERAL

INTRODUCTION
Capsicum spp. peppers are spices appreciated in the world and in gastronomic culture as ingredients for food, nutraceutical, medicinal, chemical defense, pharmacological and cosmetic properties. Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties and beneficial effects on health are reported in several studies and derived from its rich profile in carotenoids, phenolic compounds, flavonoids and capsaicinoids. The liquid sauce is one of the main consumption practices of peppers, which can be processed by hand or industry, mainly represented by jalapenho pepper (C. annuum var. annuum "jalapenho"), which is the most used pepper for the production of sauces for having larger fruits, thicker pulp walls, intense red color, medium pungency and accentuated aroma and high pulp profitability for the Brazilian agroindustry. Pepper sauces must have a high standard of quality, and for that, they must be processed in standardized steps, using high-quality raw material, adequate heat treatment (pasteurization), proper filling and storage conditions, etc. However, thermal processing used in food products, such as pasteurization, has negative points due to the demand of time, loss of some nutrients, undesirable flavor development and deterioration in the quality of food products, high energy consumption and low energy efficiency production. On the other hand, new technologies such as the use of ultrasound for processing and preservation of nutritional and bioactive compounds are gaining relevance due to their effectiveness when compared to traditional methods, since these processes can be improved and improved based on the effects of cavitation and when associated with other methods, in synergy with temperature (thermosonication), ultrasonification is often more effective, offering advantages in terms of productivity, yield and selectivity, with better processing time, better quality, reduced chemical and physical risks, purity of the final product, preservation of nutritional value and organoleptic characteristics, reduction in the overall cost of processing, replacement of conventional heat-based technologies, in addition to being ecologically correct and with a high degree of security.
AIMS
The primary objective of this research was to compare the effect of ultrasonification and thermosonification processes at different times with conventional pasteurization in the processing of jalapeno pepper sauces, evaluating their compositional, physicochemical, bioactive profiles, their influence on antioxidant capacity and time of process; and, additionally, to characterize the proximate, physicochemical composition, bioactive compounds profile and antioxidant activity of fresh jalapenho pepper.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
The pepper sauces were produced from 10 kg of jalapeno pepper purchased in a single batch, transforming the fruits into pulps in a similar way to artisanal (pulp A, cooked at 65ºC to 20 minutes) and industrial (pulp B, without) processing. cooking). Then, the pulps were crushed and homogenized with the other ingredients of the formulation, and the ultrasonification, thermosonification and pasteurization processes were applied to the two types of sauce produced: A sauces (with cooking treatment) and B sauces (without cooking treatment), being identified as AP and BP sauces (pasteurized), AUS15 and BUS15 (ultrasonicified for 15 min), AUS30 and BUS30 (ultrasonicified for 30 min), ATS15 and BTS15 (thermossified for 15 min) and ATS30 and BTS30 (thermossified for 30 min). The centesimal and physical-chemical composition was performed for the sauces and for the jalapeno pepper: protein content by the Kjeldahl method, lipid content by the Bligh & Dyer method, moisture and ash by sample weight difference, carbohydrate content was calculated by the difference of the components, the acidity content was performed by titration, the pH by potentiometry, the soluble solids by refractometry, the water activity was determined by reading the Aqualab® equipment and the color analysis was evaluated by the coordinates of the CIEL system a *, b*, L* and the color tone by the angle hº. The jalapenho pepper sauces were subjected to analysis of global color variation (ΔE *) and for identification of bioactive compounds, by mass spectrophotometry UHPLC-MS/MS. The bioactive compounds of sauces and jalapeno pepper, the levels of total flavonoids, total phenolic compounds, and total carotenoids were determined using methodologies from the literature. Antioxidant activity was performed using the DPPH, FRAP and ABTS methods for the aqueous extracts of the sauces and the fruit of the jalapeno pepper fruit. The analyzes were performed in triplicate and subjected to statistical analysis of variance and the Tukey test for the minimum significant difference (p <0.05) between the means by the Sisvar 5.6 statistical program and the calibration curves for the antioxidant analyzes were performed in the GraphPrism 5 program. For pepper sauces, Pearson's correlation was also calculated in some analyzes, for comparison purposes.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The jalapeno pepper fruits showed nutritional characteristics (moisture: 89.76 g.100g-1, ash: 0.68 g.100g-1, proteins: 1.48 g.100g-1, lipids: 0.62 g.100g-1, total carbohydrates: 7.47 g.100g-1) and physical-chemical (acidity: 0.41 g of citric acid.100g-1, pH: 5.01, TSS: 8.26 g.100g-1, aw: 0.95, hue (hº) of 55.17º, L* of 27.00, a* of 22.81 and b* of 32.79) which favor its use in the processing of pepper derivatives, in addition to be an expressive source of bioactive compounds (3.79 mg.100g-1 of β-carotene, 2.72 mg.100g-1 of lycopene, TPC of 474.64 mg GAE.100g-1 and total flavonoids of 112.88 mg QE.100g-1), with higher compound contents than other peppers of the genus. The antioxidant activity was demonstrated by the methods: DPPH (360.00 μM TE.g-1), ABTS (107.40 μM TE. g-1) and FRAP (121.47 μM FSE.g-1). In general, jalapeno pepper sauces presented similar values for the compositional profiles (moisture: 95.10 g.100g-1, ash: 2.65 g.100g-1, total carbohydrates: 1.57 g.100g-1, proteins: 0.43 g.100g-1 and lipids: 0.24 g.100g-1) and physicochemical (acidity: 1.31 g of acetic acid. 100g-1, pH: 3.35, SST: 6.01 g.100g-1, aw: 0.92, brightness (L*): 28.28, coordinate a*: 19.22, coordinate b*: 42.36, hº: 65.38º and ΔE*: 8.32) and higher in bioactive compounds compared to other data reported in the literature. The bioactive compounds profile showed a total carotenoid content of 2.39 mg.100g-1 of β-carotene, 141.83 mg GAE.100 g-1 of phenolic compounds and 50.40 mg of QE.100g-1 of total flavonoids. The antioxidant activity by the methods: DPPH was 201.00 μM TE.g-1, FRAP of 1.78 μmol FSE.g-1 and ABTS of 3.65 μM TE.g-1. Regarding the applied processing, it was observed that the treatments had little interference in the proximate and physical-chemical composition, despite showing statistical differences in some analyses. The greatest global variation in color was observed in the BUS30 sauce (ΔE*: 15,47), associated with prolonged exposure to ultrasound, while the other sauces did not show statistical difference. Pepper sauces proved to be good sources of bioactive compounds (carotenoids, phenolic compounds and flavonoids), while the antioxidant capacity was correlated with these compounds, indicating that they contributed to the antioxidant activity of the sauces and that other compounds in synergy may also be related. Thermosonification in times of 15 and 30 minutes contributed to the increase in the content of proteins, ash, soluble solids, acidity and increased the content of phenolic compounds and flavonoids compared to ultrasonification (15 and 30 minutes). The sauces thermosonified for 30 min showed higher values of carotenoids, together with the sauce thermosonified for 15 min with previous cooking. The DPPH method was better evidenced in thermosonification (15 and 30 minutes), the ABTS method showed greater activity in ultrasonification (15 and 30 minutes), while the FRAP method showed greater activity for ultrasonification and thermosonification (15 and 30 minutes) in sauces A and in sauce B, only the 30-minute thermosonification obtained greater activity.
CONCLUSIONS
In general, the thermosonification processing of 15 and 30 minutes proved to be equivalent in relation to pasteurization, and in some cases, there was an increase in the content of macronutrients, physico-chemical parameters and in bioactive compounds, demonstrating thatthese processes were favorable for the manufacture of jalapeno pepper sauces since the food process must be optimized to prevent or reduce the degradation of compounds that have potential benefits to human health, ensuring their bioavailability. For these reasons, the results suggest the use of 15-minute thermosonification processing as a more effective treatment to prevent losses of nutritional, bioactive and physicochemical compounds in sauces when compared to conventional pasteurization treatment.
KEYWORDS: Antioxidant activity; Bioactive compounds; Pasteurization; Thermosonification; Ultrasound.  

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