Formulation and Sensory Acceptance of Cereal-Bars Made with Almonds of chichá, sapucaia and gurguéia Nuts

ABSTRACT

The new trends for consumption of healthy, innovative and practical food have led to the growth of cereal-bar market in recent years. In the native Brazilian flora, there are some species still unknown, which have high potential for nut market, such as chichá, sapucaia and gurguéia. The aim of the present study was to produce cereal bars from those nuts, supplemented with pineapple peel. Cereal-bars made with chichá, sapucaia and gurguéia nuts were prepared by using three formulations as follows: A, B and C, respectively, which differ according to the proportions of vegetal fat and pineapple peel powder used in the processing system. It was verified, by using the global appearance parameter, that among the different formulations tested, formulation B obtained the highest rate for the attribute ‘acceptability’. Chichá and sapucaia cereal-bars were, in general, more accepted than gurguéia nut cereal-bar. It was observed that the use of almonds of chichá, sapucaia and gurguéia nuts, and pineapple peel is feasible to produce nutritional cereal-bars.