Elaboration of a nutritious drink based on pulp of opuntia ficus indica (nopal) enriched and flavored with juice of passiflora edulis, (maracuyá)

Abstract

The current world trend has focused on the consumption of fresh or very similar to fresh products, where fruits occupy a privileged place. Opuntia ficus indica (prickly pear) contains bioactive and functional components that have caught the attention of researchers, due to the different beneficial effects they have on health, however, in order to preserve these components, the prickly pear must be consumed fresh. which represents a problem due to the fact that its physicochemical and nutritional characteristics deteriorate rapidly.To achieve this objective, the pulp of prickly pear and Passiflora edulis (passion fruit) was extracted, once obtained the small cuts of nopal leaf were mixed ( 0.55g) in passion fruit juice (250 ml) with refined sucrose, obtaining an ideal mixture for consumption, the best T6 treatment with 15% nopal and 85% passion fruit sweetened with 12% sugar has a high acceptability Among the panelists, in terms of bromatological analyzes, the protein amount is 1.29%, this is a high value for a product with these characteristics, microbiologically the results s in total mesophil count is 1ufc / ml, Escherichia-coli and total coliforms with 0ufc / ml each, making it suitable for human consumption, when comparing the physical-chemical analyzes (pH, ° Brix and density) after 72 hours these parameters are constant, which means that the stability of the product is good, however, there was a slight precipitation of the fine cuts of nopal leaves, due to the fact that they have a different density than passion fruit juice, obtaining a drink with nutritional characteristics, ideal sensory than expected.