Microencapsulation of Garcinia Cowa Fruit Extract and Effect of its Use on Pasta Process and Quality

Microencapsulation is employed to protect bioactive ingredients in foods and is also used
for their controlled release at targeted sites. Hydroxycitric acid ((-)-HCA) is present in the
fruits of certain species of Garcinia and it has been studied extensively for its unique regulatory
effect on fatty acid synthesis, lipogenesis, appetite, and weight loss. Since hydroxycitric
acid is hygroscopic in nature, it is very difficult to convert liquid extract from the fruits of
Garcinia into dried powder. Hence, microencapsulation of Garcinia cowa fruit extract was
performed in a pilot-scale co-current spray dryer with whey protein isolate as a wall material.
In this study, two different wall-to-core ratios (1:1 and 1.5:1) and dryer outlet temperatures
(90 and 105◦C) were used for assessing the encapsulation efficiency. The results in this study
showed that the microencapsulation efficiency (based on HPLC analysis) and antioxidant
properties (based on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay) were higher at 90◦C outlet temperature
of the spray dryer using 1.5:1 wall-to-core ratio feed. Further, the spray-dried powders
were incorporated into pasta processing and evaluated its quality characteristics. The results
of this study demonstrated that incorporation of powder spray-dried at 90◦C outlet temperature
with 1.5:1 wall-to-core pasta exhibited higher antioxidant activity as well as better
cooking and sensory characteristics.