The purpose of this study was to develop a food product from the peel of an under utilised native fruit, Baccaurea angulata, known locally as Belimbing Hutan. The peel of Baccaurea angulata fruit makes up more than 60 % of the fruit and is a significant source of food waste having potential to be explored. As such, the present study was the first to explore the feasibility of producing a food product from the peel. Using conventional jam making technology, the peel of Baccaurea angulata was used as the principal ingredient besides sugar and pectin to develop a jam product. The physicochemical properties and nutritional composition of the jam were determined by the Association of Analytical Chemists (AOAC) official methods of analyses with slight modifications as written in methods section. The nutrition composition included moisture content, protein, fat and ash. Carbohydrate was calculated by subtracting the sum of protein, fat, moisture, ash and crude fibre from 100%. Vitamin C was determined by Iodometric titration. Physicochemical properties such as pH, total soluble solid (TSS) and titratable acidity (TA) were also determined. The jam product has an acidic pH which is 2.82. The other results of the study indicated that jam produced from Baccaurea angulata had similar properties as other well-known fruit jams. The results showed that Baccaurea angulata jam was rich in carbohydrate (69.85 %) and supplied 279.84 kcal of energy.
A fractional factorial design was used to investigate the ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) of oligosaccharides from coconut husk, an agroindustry by-product. The effects of five key influencing parameters (X 1, incubation temperature; X 2, extraction duration; X 3, ultrasonicator power; X 4, NaOH concentration; X 5, solid-to-liquid ratio) were studied. Total carbohydrate content (TC), total reducing sugar (TRS), and degree of polymerisation (DP) were the dependent variables. The optimal extraction condition was attained when oligosaccharides with a desired DP of 3.72 were extracted when the coconut husk in a liquid-to-solid ratio of 127 mL/g was treated with 1.05 percent (w/v) of NaOH solution at an incubation temperature of 30.4°C for 5 min using an ultrasonicator power of 248 W. The optimised parameters for oligosaccharide extraction from coconut husk reported in this study could be useful for the effective isolation of these compounds for prebiotic research.
There has been a high amount of attention given to prebiotics due to their significant physiological function and health benefits. Prebiotics contain nondigestible compounds that allow specific changes, both in the growth and in the activity of bacteria in the host gastrointestinal tract, that provide benefits upon the host by promoting a healthy digestive system and preventing disease. This study aims at investigating the potential prebiotic activity of bioactive compounds extracted from the seeds of an underutilized indigenous plant Artocarpus integer (A. integer). The optimum microwave-assisted extraction conditions were a microwave power of 1500 W, extraction time of 180 s, and solvent-to-sample ratio of 1000 : 1. The maximum amount of the total carbohydrate content extracted from A. integer was 787 mg/L. The percentage hydrolysis levels of A. integer extract in gastric juice at pH 1, 2, 3, and 4 were 6.14%, 7.12%, 8.98%, and 10.23%, respectively. For enzymatic digestion, the percentage of hydrolysis was 0.16% at pH 7. A. integer extract was found to support the growth of probiotics such as L. acidophilus and L. casei. After 72 hours of incubation, L. acidophilus achieved 6.96 log10 CFU, whereas L. casei reached 8.33 log10 CFU. The study makes an important contribution to the development of the use of Sarawakian underutilized plants and to the identification of new sources of prebiotic materials to be used in food.