Composição química de couve (Brassica oleracea L.) em diferentes estádios de desenvolvimento e avaliação da aceitabilidade de microgreens

Abstract

Microgreens are specific types of vegetables and herbs that are harvested prematurely, usually up to two weeks after the germination. Research on microgreens as an innovation in nutraceutical cooking is an incipient and promising branch of food science, but there are few studies designed to assess its nutritional potential for the human organism. Given this context, this research work aims to evaluate the phytochemical profile of cabbage microgreens, in comparison with their respective developmental stages: baby leaf and adult plant, as well as to evaluate the acceptability of contribute to the introduction of this new modality of vegetables in the human diet. The experiments were carried out from March to December 2019, at the Department of Food Science Postharvest Laboratory of Fruits and Vegetables, located at the Federal University of Lavras and at the SPA Lapinha, located in the municipality of Lapa, Paraná state, Brazil. . For chemical analysis, non-pelleted kale butter seeds (Brassica oleracea L.) were sown in trays with appropriate substrates and irrigated daily with water. In the first experiment, three harvests were performed, 15 days after sowing (“microgreen”), 40 days after sowing (“baby leaf”) and 60 days after sowing (adult), and the samples compared with each other by laboratory analysis. The second experiment, regarding the evaluation of the acceptability and perception of microgreens by the guests, was done by offering microgreens during meals at Lapinha SPA and applying questionnaires respectively. The results for the chemical analysis showed that the vegetables in the microgreens and baby leafs presented higher levels of micronutrients and antioxidant capacity by the phosphomolybdenum method than the adult (commercial) plant, but for phenolic compounds and total carotenoids, the adult cabbage had higher contents than baby leaf and microgreens. The acceptability results showed that the six species of microgreens offered at Lapinha SPA meals ranged from 84.84 to 96.60%, being considered excellent by the scale proposed by Ferreira et al. (2012). The perception of microgreens was evaluated through questionnaires to evaluate the attributes: decorative value (DV), sophistication and innovation (SI) and palatability (PA). The RV attribute showed very good perception (90%), followed by SI (79%) and BP (60%). The percentage of responses whose perception level was considered very good and good was higher than 80% for all evaluated attributes. Microgreens have the potential to be incorporated into the diet of SPA's clients in Brazil and around the world, as they add differentiated nutritional and aesthetic value to the dishes offered in both conventional and gourmet cuisine.