Acerola, Cashew Apple, Cherimoya and Pitanga - Tropical and Subtropical Fruits: Postharvest Physiology, Processing and Packaging - page 558

Freeze-drying of acerola, with fast prefreezing, preserved
the original porous structure of the product and resulted in a
powder material that was resistant to degradation, had min-
imum shrinkage, and had high rehydrating capacity (Mar-
ques et al., 2007).
Frozen acerola was blanched in water (80 ◦ Cfor3min)
and subjected to osmotic dehydration, using binary (water
+ sucrose) or ternary (water + sucrose + salt) solution at
25 ◦ and 60 ◦ C (Alves et al., 2005). The concentration of
sucrose ranged from 30% to 60% for the binary solution
and from 20% to 50% for the ternary solution with 10%
salt. The best conditions were a binary solution with 60%
sucrose or a ternary solution with 50% sucrose at 60 ◦ C.
After 350 days of storage at 28 ◦ C, unsweetened bot-
tled acerola juice processed by the hot fill method had
good microbiological stability but showed a reduction in
overall acceptance and appearance, while maintaining the
same initial color and taste acceptance (de Freitas et al.,
2006b). It developed slight browning, increased in pH, and
experienced a significant reduction in total carotenoid, total
anthocyanin, and ascorbic acid.

Pseudofruit and plant characteristics
Technically, the kidney-shaped nut is the true fruit. It is
borne on the end of a swollen, pear-shaped, fleshy stalk
(peduncle) known as the cashew apple (Fig. 29.1). This
yellow or red, juicy pseudofruit, about 5-11 cm long, has
fragile skin and a unique acidic sweet taste. It has been
widely consumed as fruit in Latin America for years. The
fresh cashew apples are astringent because of their high
tannin content.
Wide-scale production of the cashew nut has resulted
in large quantities of the nutritious pseudofruit being dis-
carded as waste. The nuts represent only 10% of the total
fruit weight, and large amounts of cashew apples are left
in the field after nut removal (Pimentel et al., 2002). The
Brazilian northeast has an annual production of about two
million tons of cashew apple, and 90% of this production
is either lost or underutilized.
The attractive evergreen cashew tree is short to medium
in height, growing up to 4-8 m in 6 years, and can reach
12-15 m in the adult phase (Silva, 1996). It is multi-trunked,
the trunks often irregularly shaped, and has a dense, sym-
metrical, spreading canopy. Its green, leathery leaves are
oblong-oval, 10-20 cm long, and 5-10 cm wide. The flow-
ers are small, yellowish pink, and five-petaled.
Characteristics considered desirable in choosing the
clone for cultivation are (Filgueiras et al., 2002): short
plants so as to facilitate harvest and pear-shaped yellow to
red peduncle, weighing between 80 and 140 g, with consis-
tent texture, sweet taste (minimum of 10 ◦ Brix), low tannin
content (maximum of 0.4%), and low acidity (0.3-0.4%).
The clone 'CCP-76,' which has been commercially culti-
vated for some years in Brazil, produces cashew apple with
red skin, deep orange pulp, good taste, with size and shape
adequate for the fresh market and the fruit juice industry
(Filgueiras et al., 2002).
The common cashew tree commences production of
fruits in the third year after planting and turns economically
profitable in the eighth year (Ctenas et al., 2000). Flowering
lasts 5 months, and fruiting occurs in about 130 days.
Complete development of the whole fruit (nut and pe-
duncle) takes approximately 50 days, varying between 44
and 72 days (Filgueiras et al., 2002). Initially, the nut devel-
ops rapidly and uniformly, until maximum size is reached
(between 30 and 36 days). The development of the pedun-
cle, in contrast, is very slow at the initial stages and rapid
after the nut reaches maximum size.
The dwarf cashew starts fruit production in the first year
and becomes economically viable in the third year (Ctenas
et al., 2000). Flowering occurs during 8 months and fruiting
lasts 180 days, starting 30 days before the other types.

Waste utilization
Acerola processing generates an intensely red pomace as a
by-product, which is usually discarded in spite of being rich
in high-value compounds. The best processing conditions
to obtain a free-flowing and least hygroscopic acerola po-
mace powder by spray drying were established by Moreira
et al. (2009) to be inlet temperature above 194 ◦ C, drying
aid/acerola solid ratio of 4:1, and at least 80% replacement
of maltodextrin by cashew tree gum.
Determining the free radical-scavenging activities of
some tropical fruit residues, De Oliveira et al. (2009) sug-
gested that the methanolic extracts of acerola and passion
fruit may be useful as antioxidant supplements because of
their high phenolic content.

CASHEW APPLE
A member of the Anacardiaceae family, cashew ( Anac-
ardium occidentale L.) is widely cultivated throughout Cen-
tral and Southern America and the West Indies but is native
of the arid lands of northeastern and central Brazil. Por-
tuguese traders introduced it to Mozambique and coastal
India. From these two areas, it spread to other parts of
Asia and Africa. The major producers of cashew are India,
Nigeria, Brazil, Tanzania, and Indonesia (Pimentel et al.,
2002). It is also produced in Guinea-Bissau, Cote D'Ivoire,
Mozambique, Benin, and Vietnam.