Biometric evaluation and analysis of vitamin C in exotic fruits marketed in supermarkets and markets of Teresina – PI

Abstract

The commercialization of exotic fruits in Brazil has been expanding considerably in the last years presenting the production of approximately 40 million tons, keeping behind only of China and India. Know the biometric variability of fruits is of great importance, since each fruit has a special character even though they belong to the same groups of species, regardless of their conservation and harvest. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the physicochemical characteristics: vitamin C content titrated total acidity (ATT), pH, soluble solids content and the biometric profile in exotic fruits commercialized in markets and supermarkets in the city of Teresina-PI. The analysis for this work consisted of collecting 18 exotic fruit samples in the South Zone, North Zone and eastern zones of the city of Teresina-PI. In relation to the biometric profile of the fruits pitaya, carambola, jiló, bacuri, atemoya and ata suffered variations in relation to size dimensions. Following the percentage of yield of fresh pulp, the plum presented the highest yield with 97.87% and the smallest yield with 6.73%. As for vitamin C content, the pitanga was found to have the highest ascorbic acid content of 174.34 mg/100 g. In the analysis of pH, the seriguela had the lowest acid value of 1.89. Thus, it was possible to verify that each exotic fruit has its physical-chemical and biometric variety. It can also be concluded that the loss of vitamin C can occur due to some external factors and that the high amount of ascorbic acid is related to the great state of maturation of the fruit.