Alternative sweetener from curculigo fruits

This study gives an overview on the advantages of Curculigo Latifolia as an alternative sweetener and a health product. The purpose of this research is to provide another option to the people who suffer from diabetes. In this research, Curculigo Latifolia was chosen, due to its unique properties and widely known species in Malaysia. In order to obtain the sweet protein from the fruit, it must go through a couple of procedures. First we harvested the fruits from the Curculigo trees that grow wildly in the garden. Next, the Curculigo fruits were dried in the oven at 50 0C for 3 days. Finally, the dried fruits were blended in order to get a fine powder. Curculin is a sweet protein with a taste-modifying activity of converting sourness to sweetness. The curculin content from the sample shown are directly proportional to the mass of the Curculigo fine powder. While the FTIR result shows that the sample spectrum at peak 1634 cm–1 contains secondary amines. At peak 3307 cm–1 contains alkynes

Production of herbal shampoo from Madagascar periwinkle

Recently, the society interest in using herbal shampoos has increased significantly. Big companies have started to produce herbal shampoo to meet the market demands. However, most of these shampoos contain chemicals that could be harmful to human health. The main purpose of this study are to produce homemade herbal shampoo from Madagascar Periwinkle plant without harmful chemicals and have additional benefits to consumers. By using stem and leaf extract from the plant and cold press machine, we analysed the quantitative aspect of the extracts and use it as a main ingredient to produce homemade herbal shampoo. The extracts are then used as ingredients in production of the shampoo. Several tests were conducted to determine the performance of the shampoos. The Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis shows presence oh -OH groups and C=O bond to indicate the presence of vinca alkaloids. The performance tests result inconsistent to one extract only. This study provided an information to future researchers regarding the study of Madagascar Periwinkle and effectiveness of this plant in herbal shampoos production