Influence of Concentration and Type of Sugar Additives on the Osmolality and Acceptance of Coconut Water

Abstract

Diet formulations and health drinks with low osmolality has been used to enteral nutrition and electrolytes reposition and coconut water have a great potential to it. To other hand, the use of sugars, besides increase osmolality, is advantageous to industries to permit obtain a product with sweet taste standardized. In order to evaluate the effect of types of sugars on coconut water osmolality an experiment was laid out in a completely randomized 3x4 factorial design with three types of sugars (glucose, fructose and sucrose) and four concentrations of sugar (0 g.kg-1, 5 g.kg-1, 10 g.kg-1 and 15 g.kg-1). It was verified that tested concentration and types of sugars affects significantly (p < 0.05) the coconut water osmolality. However, at the tested levels the product is still less hypertonic than a great number of existent beverages, remaining as an alternative as refreshing and re-hydration beverage. Fructose, among tested sugars, is the one which promotes less impact on osmolality and its addition in increasing levels improved the acceptability, being a good alternative to standardize the sweet taste on industrial process.