Nutritional Properties of Jam Made from Cacao (Theobrama cacao L.) Mucilage as a Novel Nutraceutical Product

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

One of the major unutilized by-products is cacao mucilage. Cacao mucilage is rich in sugar, vitamins, protein, fats, and minerals. This can be made into jam without the addition of sugar as preservative. Cooking raw cacao mucilage to jam and retain its important nutritional properties could make the product nutraceutical. To determine the nutraceutical potential of the cacao mucilage jam, the nutritional properties of jam from cacao mucilage were determined. Comparison of raw cacao mucilage and jam was conducted to determine the retention or increase rate of their nutritional properties.

METHODS

Shelf life of jam was evaluated 17 months through observation of the appearance of molds done in subjective manner using magnifying glass. Samples were submitted to the Food Development Centre (FDC) of National Food Authority (NFA) at FTI Complex, Taguig City for the Nutritional Analyses such as total sugar (as invert sugar) content, vitamin C content, crude fat content, and crude protein content.

RESULTS

Results revealed that for 17 months the processed product was still free from molds. The absence of molds depicted that the shelf life of jam product was still good. This means that the mucilage from seeds of cacao could be developed into processed product with long shelf life. The nutritional properties showed that the total sugar in raw cacao mucilage was very high compared to the jam with only 19.58 percent retention. Vitamin C on the other hand was lower in raw (1.83 g/ 100g) than in jam (10 g/ 100 g) with a dramatic increase of 555 percent. Crude fat and crude protein had retention rates of 5.37 percent and 20.56 percent, respectively.

DISCUSSIONS

Mucilage from cacao is under-utilized thus efforts should go toward its utilization will be considered. Making cacao mucilage into jam has strong economic advantage, health benefits and environmental potential thus expanding the utilization of these crops will be an incentive for farmers to cultivate them.