Bioactive compounds and chemical composition of Brazilian Cerrado fruits’ wastes: pequi almonds, murici, and sweet passionfruit seeds

Abstract Pequi, murici and sweet passionfruit are typical fruits from Brazilian Cerrado, which stand out for their sensory attributes such as color, flavor and aroma, in addition to their high nutritional value. Their seeds are by-products from the industrial processing of juices, pulps, jellies, and others, and have great exploitation potential due to their high oil content and the presence of bioactive compounds. The present work aimed to evaluate the chemical composition of pequi almonds, and of murici and sweet passionfruit seeds, and also to quantify the total phenolic compounds, carotenoids, anthocyanins and antioxidant activity by the scavenging activity of •DPPH method. Concerning the chemical composition, pequi almonds presented the highest concentration of lipids (50%), followed by sweet passionfruit (30%) and murici seeds (15%). The almonds from pequi fruit showed the greatest content of protein (33.3%) followed by sweet passionfruit seeds (15%), which presented the highest amount of fiber (41.3%). Murici seeds exhibited the highest content of carbohydrates (46.4%). Pequi almonds had the greatest content of the following minerals, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, manganese, zinc, copper, iron, and sodium, and anthocyanins (14.4 mg CYG/100 g d.b.). Sweet passionfruit seeds presented the greatest amount of calcium, and also had the highest carotenoid content (9 mg/100 g d.b.). Murici seeds showed the highest potential for bioactive compounds, with 404 mg GAE/100 g d.b. and 81% of scavenging activity for the •DPPH. The results demonstrated that the studied seeds have the potential to be sources for new product development, such as oil.