DEVELOPMENT OF A BLENDED NONALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE COMPOSED OF COCONUT WATER AND CASHEW APPLE JUICE CONTAINING CAFFEINE

ABSTRACT

In this work, the stability of a blended beverage composed by coconut water and clarified cashew apple juice (“cajuina”) is presented. The physicochemical, microbiological and sensory stability of a blended nonalcoholic beverage composed of coconut water and cajuina (80:20 v/v) were evaluated during 6 months. The results showed that the beverage presented good stability in all analyzed parameters except for vitamin C, which presented a loss of about 80% of the initial content. The beverage color also presented changes during the storage time. Despite these alterations, the product acceptance during the storage period did not show any rejection.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The development of blended beverages is a good way of improving the nutritional quality of traditional products. By mixing two or more kinds of fruits, a product with more vitamins and minerals and with different sensory and flavor characteristics when compared to the raw materials is obtained. In the present work, coconut water and cashew apple juice were mixed to obtain a different product combining the nutritional components from both fruits. The blended beverage combines the high vitamin C content of the cashew apple juice with the high mineral level of the coconut water. Caffeine was also added conferring stimulating properties to the product. The product acceptance was evaluated by sensory analysis and presented good acceptance until 6 months of storage at room temperature, presenting the required characteristics for a commercial product.

     

Modeling considerations in seismic assessment of RC bridges using state-of-practice structural analysis software tools

The increasing awareness of the general society toward the seismic safety of structures has led to more restrictive performance requirements hence, many times, to the need of using new and more accurate methods of analysis of structures. Among these, nonlinear static procedures are becoming, evermore, the preferred choice of the majority of design codes, as an alternative to complete nonlinear time-history analysis for seismic design and assessment of structures. The many available software tools should therefore be evaluated and well understood, in order to be easily and soundly employed by the practitioners. The study presented herein intends to contribute to this need by providing further insight with respect to the use of commonly employed structural analysis software tools in nonlinear analysis of bridge structures. A comparison between different nonlinear modeling assumptions is presented, together with the comparison with real experimental results. Furthermore, alternative adaptive pushover procedures are proposed and applied to a case study bridge, based on a generic plastic hinge model. The adopted structural analysis program proved to be accurate, yielding reliable estimates, both in terms of local plastic hinge behavior and global structural behavior.     

Low resolution pulse nuclear magnetic resonance study of water equilibration in dried carrots

Samples taken during air drying of carrots were analysed after different equilibration times. Low resolution NMR measurements were made and the longitudinal ( T ₁) and the transverse ( T ₂) relaxation times calculated. Both T ₁ and T ₂ decreased with the equilibration time for water contents above 0.30 and 0.47 kg water kg^-1 dry matter, respectively. The decrease in relaxation time increased with the water content. For the same water contents, grated carrots gave lower T ₁ values and smaller T ₁ decreases with equilibration time than 3-mm cubes. Low resolution NMR is a technique which is well suited to the monitoring of the tempering phases of industrial drying cycles.     

The relationship of flow cytometry results with classical measures of bacterial counts in raw refrigerated milk

Bulk milk was collected from 100 farms throughout the year and analysed after storage for either 24, 48 or 72 h, using flow cytometry. The total bacterial counts obtained by two methods – flow cytometry and standard plate count were compared and the conversion relationship between them was assessed: the results showed no effect of the age of the samples relationship between these two methods.     

STORAGE STABILITY OF A STIMULANT COCONUT WATER-CASHEW APPLE JUICE BEVERAGE

Besides flavor, appearance and overall impression, food consumers seek foods rich in nutrients. Fruits are a rich source of nutrients and minerals, and fruit juices are a popular way of consuming them. Development of new products, where two or more kinds of fruit juices are blended to obtain a product that combines the nutritional value of both fruits, which present a different and pleasant taste, has been encouraged by the food industry and has been well accepted by consumers. In this work, the storage stability of a coconut water‐cashew apple juice (87.5:12.5 v/v) beverage was evaluated. Caffeine addition (100 mg/L) conferred stimulating properties to the blend. The physicochemical, microbiological and sensory stability of this blended beverage was evaluated during 6 months. The results showed that the beverage presented good stability for all parameters that were analyzed except for vitamin C, which presented a loss of 58% from the initial content.     

On the influence of lipid‐induced optical anisotropy for the bioimaging of exo‐ or endocytosis with interference microscopic imaging

Some implementations of interference microscopy imaging use digital holographic measurements of complex scattered fields to reconstruct three‐dimensional refractive index maps of weakly scattering, semi‐transparent objects, frequently encountered in biological investigations. Reconstruction occurs through application of the object scattering potential which assumes an isotropic refractive index throughout the object. Here, we demonstrate that this assumption can in some circumstances be invalid for biological imaging due to the presence of lipid‐induced optical anisotropy. We show that the nanoscale organization of lipids in the observation of cellular endocytosis with polarized light induces a significant change in far‐field scattering. We obtain this result by presenting a general solution to Maxwell's equations describing light scattering of core–shell particles near an isotropic substrate covered with an anisotropic thin film. This solution is based on an extension of the Bobbert–Vlieger solution for particle scattering near a substrate delivering an exact solution to the scattering problem in the near field as well as far field. By applying this solution to study light scattering by a lipid vesicle near a lipid bilayer, whereby the lipids are represented through a biaxial optical model, we conclude through ellipsometry concepts that effective amounts of lipid‐induced optical anisotropy significantly alter far‐field optical scattering in respect to an equivalent optical model that neglects the presence of optical anisotropy.     

EFFECTS OF WATER STRESS ON THE PROXIMATE COMPOSITION AND MINERAL CONTENTS OF SEEDS OF TWO LUPINS (LUPINUS ALBUS AND LUPINUS MUTABILIS)

Because mineral composition data for lupins subjected to water stress (ws) are incomplete, it is essential to analyze those seeds in order to assess the quality of potential food source for both human and animal nutrition. So, we have performed chemical proximate analysis and determined the mineral profile of seeds from two lupins subjected to ws period and compared with seeds from well‐watered (ww) plants. From the above results we can conclude that the values obtained fall within the range of values reported for both species (at ww conditions) and no significant (P > 0.05) differences were found in nutritional composition and mineral content between both lupins. Ws period was responsible for a significant increase in sugar, ash, both macroelements (Ca, Na, K, Mg) and microelements (Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu) as well as phytate content. The results obtained are relevant for selection of better mineral nutritive value of seeds from lupin species.