MICROENCAPSULATION OF GARCINIA COWA FRUIT EXTRACT AND EFFECT OF ITS USE ON PASTA PROCESS AND QUALITY

Microencapsulation is employed to protect bioactive ingredients in foods and is also used for their controlled release at targeted sites. Hydroxycitric acid ((-)-HCA) is present in the fruits of certain species of Garcinia and it has been studied extensively for its unique regulatory effect on fatty acid synthesis, lipogenesis, appetite, and weight loss. Since hydroxycitric acid is hygroscopic in nature, it is very difficult to convert liquid extract from the fruits of Garcinia into dried powder. Hence, microencapsulation of Garcinia cowa fruit extract was performed in a pilot-scale co-current spray dryer with whey protein isolate as a wall material. In this study, two different wall-to-core ratios (1:1 and 1.5:1) and dryer outlet temperatures (90 and 105 degrees C) were used for assessing the encapsulation efficiency. The results in this study showed that the microencapsulation efficiency (based on HPLC analysis) and antioxidant properties (based on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay) were higher at 90 degrees C outlet temperature of the spray dryer using 1.5:1 wall-to-core ratio feed. Further, the spray-dried powders were incorporated into pasta processing and evaluated its quality characteristics. The results of this study demonstrated that incorporation of powder spray-dried at 90 degrees C outlet temperature with 1.5:1 wall-to-core pasta exhibited higher antioxidant activity as well as better cooking and sensory characteristics.