INFLUENCE OF THE PROCESSING STEPS ON CASHEW NUT QUALITY

Cashew nuts have high nutritional value. This nut providesmacronutrients, micronutrients and a large variety of antioxidants,such as phenolic compounds. There are losses in some compoundsduring the processing of fruits and there are very few studies onthis aspect. Given the above, this research aimed to determine theeff ect of the processing steps on cashew nut characteristics withemphasis on total antioxidant activity. Signifi cant diff erences wereobserved between the processing steps for all the chemical andphysical-chemical characteristics studied. Cashew nuts containedhigh levels of lipids and energy, low content of moisture and wateractivity and medium content of phenolic compounds (51.33 GAE/100g) and antioxidant activity by the ABTS•+ radical (6.49 μM Trolox/g)at the end of the process. Regarding the total antioxidant activity,it was observed that the ABTS•+ radical method can be consideredappropriate to measure the antioxidant activity of cashew nuts, sincethe results presented lower coeffi cients of variation and expressproportionate results to other methods