Preliminary Identification of β-Carotene in Sesbania Flower (Sesbania javanica Miq.) Extracts and Application in Ice-cream Product

Abstract

β-carotene, a group of carotenoids has been proposed the beneficial effects on human health as well as played an essential role in the pharmaceutical function so far. In recent years, there has been increased interest in alternative dietary sources of β-carotene through the development of functional foods. β-carotene is naturally abundant in several yellow-orange vegetables and fruits also. The present study was efficiently enumerated the β-carotene accumulation in the Sesbania flower (Sesbania javanica Miq.) and extraordinarily supplemented the Sesbania flower into ice-cream as the dietary supplemented food. The preliminary chemical composition of Sesbania flower crude extracts was basically investigated according to the TLC fingerprint analysis. The results exhibited either ethanol or hexane extracts of dried Sesbania flower were displayed the similar fingerprint pattern related to the β-carotene standard leading to the highly interested in Sesbania flower ice-cream product development. The increase in yellowness (b*) parameter was observed within the 20 percent of Sesbania flower supplemented in ice-cream product compared to the control as well as the existence of β-carotene accumulation of 1.94 and 0.18 μg/g, respectively. Therefore, the production of Sesbania flower ice-cream could be promote either in the implementation of the locally agricultural in the food processing or additive nutrition in the food products. However, the progressive development of novel Sesbania flower ice-cream probably conducted the consumer acceptance and considerably promoted as the health promotion ice-cream in the future.