Ascorbic acid is a water soluble vitamin of long-established nutritional importance for its role as a cofactor in many physiological processes and as an antioxidant. Human beings depend on daily intake of this micronutrient, whose main sources are fruits and vegetables. As the least stable nutrient, ascorbic acid suffers losses during processing and storage, influenced by several factors (pH, temperature, presence of ions, etc.). The literature provides little material on the stability of ascorbic acid in home storage and there is little information about this vitamin in fresh juices. The standard methodology for analysis of this vitamin in juices is the titrimetric method of Tillmans, which can present difficulties in visualizing the turning point. In this study, the concentration and stability of ascorbic acid in freshly prepared commercial juices of orange, pineapple with mint and watermelon, stored under refrigeration or at room temperature, were evaluated with two different titrimetric methods. The alternative method of analysis (NBS) overestimated the ascorbic acid concentration of the samples. There was no significant difference in the stability of this vitamin in juices stored in temperatures between 6 and 30ºC during the testing period. Ascorbic acid was stable for 24 h in orange juice, but showed significant decrease after 8 h storage in pineapple and watermelon juices, possibly due to differences in initial acidity of these juices. In comparison to the available literature it was found that fresh juices had lower ascorbic acid stability than industrialized juices.
Ascorbic acid; DCFI; NBS; Citrus sinensis; Citrullus vulgaris; Ananas comosus
