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Theobroma speciosum, known as "cacauí" in Brazil, is considered a prominent unconventional food plant. The objective of this work was to evaluate the chemical profiles, antioxidant capacity and minerals of the aqueous extract and fractions from its flowers. The identified compounds were sugars, organic acids and phenolics compounds such as citric, malic and protocatechuic acids, quercetin, quercetin pentoside and quercetin-3-O-glucoside. The extract was rich in phenolic compounds (640 mg GAE g -1 ). Furthermore, fractions also presented phenolic compounds from 170.7 to 560.7 mg GAE g -1 (mainly protocatechuic acid, quercetin and derivatives), which influenced on the high antioxidant capacity in DPPH, ABTS, FRAP and co-oxidation β-carotene/linolenic acid assays. Flowers presented potassium (115 ± 2 μg mL -1 ), magnesium (18.4 ± 0.2 μg mL - 1 ), phosphorus (7.0 ± 0.0 μg mL - 1 ) and calcium (3.1 ± 0.1 μg mL - 1 ). Moreover, the flowers aqueous extract represents a new promising food source rich in antioxidant compounds., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The aim of this paper was to evaluate the effect of cold plasma excitation frequency on camu-camu juice processing. Different levels of frequency (200, 420, 583, 698 and 960 Hz) were applied on camu-camu juice to measure the contents of ascorbic acid and anthocyanins, as well as to evaluate the antioxidant compounds (DPPH, ABTS, FRAP and phenolic compounds), peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase enzymatic activity and color. Furthermore, the juice bioaccessibility was evaluated after simulated digestion. The ascorbic acid concentration was increased when higher excitation frequencies were employed, increasing their bioavailability. Anthocyanins, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase presented considerable degradation with increasing the plasma excitation frequency. For this reason, the juice processing proposed herein represents an alternative to enhance its nutritional quality. Moreover, the use of cold plasma reduced the activity concentration of endogenous enzymes, presenting considerable degradation for higher excitation frequency., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Species of Eugenia have been used as an antidiabetic natural source. Chemical, antioxidant and antiglycant screening of extracts from pedra-ume caá (Eugenia punicifolia) fruits were performed. 1 H NMR assisted by non-supervised chemometric methods were employed for the evaluation of the chemical profiles which were distinguished according to the color of fruit maturation stages, as well as for pulp and seed fruit. Furthermore, 1 H NMR fingerprint analysis of the crude extract allowed the identification of quercitrin and myricitrin, beside other nine compounds. The extracts of the yellow (YP) and green (GP) pulps presented higher antiglycant and antioxidant activities. Fresh juice from E. punicifolia was encapsulated in microcapsules produced with dextrose equivalent (DE) of 10, 20 or 30 as wall materials for the maintainment of their antioxidant and antiglycant properties. The more efficient retention of the bioactive compounds was found using the DE30. The Encapsulation Efficiency (EE) and the Retention Efficiency (RE) of this system was found around 89.7% and 97.6%, respectively. In addition, NMR spectra revealed the presence of flavonoids O-glycosylated (quercitrin and myricitrin) which might be related to the antiglycant and antioxidant activities. The YP presented larger content of quercitrin (117.6 ± 0.4 mg per each 100 g of fresh fruit). Therefore, pedra-ume caá should be employed as an alternative nutraceutical source, as well as intherapeutic pourposes., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)