Obtaining prebiotics on the basis of vegetable by products for use as an ingredient in functional foods

Abstract

In recent years the importance of prebiotics has been increased because they are related to human health, in several investigations the presence of prebiotics in many vegetables has been found, on the other hand it is also known that there are many plant by-products that are not yet used efficiently, being considered waste. Recent studies investigated the obtaining of prebiotics from by-products and residues such as husks and seeds of various fruits raising various methodologies using solvents, reagents, thermal and enzymatic processes that reported the presence of prebiotics. In that sense, the objective of this work is to obtain prebiotics from vegetable by-products of pumpkin (Ficifolia cucurbita) for use as an ingredient in functional foods. Seeds and pumpkin peel by-products were collected and subjected to dehydration (50 °C x 48 hours), then grinding was carried out to obtain flour at a particle size of 70 ° mesh, the chemical composition of the samples obtained was determined and prebiotics were obtained by two methods: Hydrothermal (121 °C x 10 min) in a vertical autoclave and Enzyme (α-amylase at 37 °C) in a bioreactor, the total dietary fiber content was determined, sucrose, reducing sugars and fructose. A significant difference (P <0.05) was found between treatments, presenting better average of the enzymatic method. The pumpkin presented better prebiotic potential and the seed has a high protein and oil content.