In vitro digestive activity and stability study of Rhus chinensis Mill. fruit and its value-added products

Rhus chinensis Mill. belonging to the family Anacardiaceae is a highly acidic fruit-bearing tree abundantly grown in the North-Eastern part of India. Due to its high medicinal values, the local medical practitioners of this region have widely used the fruit in various treatments like indigestion, dysentery, and gastrointestinal disturbances since ancient times. However, because of its ‘underutilized status’, there is an acute shortage of scientific literature thereby undermining its high potential use in developing many commercial functional foods or food ingredients. Therefore, this study was undertaken to address the same by formulating natural digestive tablets, R. chinensis tablets and R. chinensis candy from the fruit with minimal expenses. R. chinensis fruit and its products’ efficacy for the digestive property was determined in vitro by amylolytic, proteolytic and lipolytic activity and compared other commercial samples of the herbal digestive, Gasex and allopathic digestive, Unienzyme. The formulation was evaluated for a period of zero to 90 days. Physical parameters viz. extractive values, total titratable acidity, total soluble solids, pH, and reducing sugar were determined. The fruit and its products showed significant amylolytic, proteolytic, and lipolytic activities in comparison with other commercial samples. Interestingly in all the samples, no significant changes in digestive activities were observed during the storage period. The formulations were found to possess the property of breaking down starch, protein, lipid into simpler units hence, substantiating the traditional practice of digestive activity. This is the first scientific record in terms of in vitro digestive property of R. chinensis fruit

In vitro digestive activity and stability study of Rhus chinensis Mill. fruit and its value-added products

472-479Rhus chinensis Mill. belonging to the family Anacardiaceae is a highly acidic fruit-bearing tree abundantly grown in the North-Eastern part of India. Due to its high medicinal values, the local medical practitioners of this region have widely used the fruit in various treatments like indigestion, dysentery, and gastrointestinal disturbances since ancient times. However, because of its ‘underutilized status’, there is an acute shortage of scientific literature thereby undermining its high potential use in developing many commercial functional foods or food ingredients. Therefore, this study was undertaken to address the same by formulating natural digestive tablets, R. chinensis tablets and R. chinensis candy from the fruit with minimal expenses. R. chinensis fruit and its products’ efficacy for the digestive property was determined in vitro by amylolytic, proteolytic and lipolytic activity and compared other commercial samples of the herbal digestive, Gasex and allopathic digestive, Unienzyme. The formulation was evaluated for a period of zero to 90 days. Physical parameters viz. extractive values, total titratable acidity, total soluble solids, pH, and reducing sugar were determined. The fruit and its products showed significant amylolytic, proteolytic, and lipolytic activities in comparison with other commercial samples. Interestingly in all the samples, no significant changes in digestive activities were observed during the storage period. The formulations were found to possess the property of breaking down starch, protein, lipid into simpler units hence, substantiating the traditional practice of digestive activity. This is the first scientific record in terms of in vitro digestive property of R. chinensis fruit

Nutritional evaluation of <em>Rhus chinensis</em> Mill. (<em>Heimang</em>) and development of value added products

16-24Rhus chinensis Mill. is a lesser known highly acidic fruit, traditionally used for its digestive properties and treatment of diarrhea, dysentery and gastrointestinal ailments. In this study, physicochemical characteristics and nutritional properties of different parts of the fruit and development of value added products – R. chinensis tablet and R. chinensis candy and their storability were evaluated. Different parts of the fruit were found to have high content of total fibre-seed (25.97%), pulp (22.83%), whole fruit (22.15%), tablet (15.45%) and candy (14.47%), total fat-seed (36.96%), pulp (20.92%), whole fruit (12.97%), tablet (8.24%) and candy (6.13%) and total acidity-pulp (19.94%), whole fruit (7.28%), seed (3.12%), tablet (3.7%) and candy (3.68%). The major organic acids identified were malic acid, citric acid and ascorbic acid, which are documented for the first time. In comparison to whole fruit and seed, fruit pulp showed the maximum activities of antioxidants, total polyphenols and total flavanoids. These findings suggest that R. chinensis fruit can be considered as a potential functional food or functional food ingredient