Hussain Zaki U. K.^1,, Anvarali M. N.¹, Ahmad S.¹, Mohd. A.¹, Sapiee N. F.¹, Ali M. F.¹

Garcinia atroviridis (asam gelugur) is one of the underutilized plants used frequently in medicine as fruit for reducing weight and excess body fat by halting the glycogen process. The principal acid in this fruit is (-)-hydroxycitric acid (HCA). The objective of this research was to enhance the concentration of HCA in garcinia powder, intended for utilization as an ingredient in a range of health food items designed to aid in weight management. A pre-treatment method was used on the fruit to achieve the optimal level of HCA content. Three maturity indexes were employed to evaluate and determine the optimum level of HCA. Ten different pre-treatments were analyzed (five pre-treatments added sodium meta-bisulfate) and (five pre-treatments without sodium meta-bisulfate). The existing method for the determination of HCA uses an acid-base titration which gives the total acidity of fruit extracts. The analysis showed that all treatments that added sodium meta-bisulfate gave lower acidity content significantly compared to pre-treatment without sodium meta-bisulfate. Five pre-treatments of the sample showed that the blanching process and enzyme added gave the optimum acidity content compared to the other three treatments. There was no notable distinction in acidity content between the blanching and enzyme-added methods, registering at 45.6% and 46.84%, respectively. These two samples were chosen for the determination of HCA using HPLC. HCA content for blanching and enzyme added were 1.23 and 1.87 gm/freeze-dry samples, respectively. The findings indicate that there were no statistically significant variations in acidity levels between samples at 3 months and 4 months of maturity. Similarly, the analysis of HCA content revealed only marginal differences between the two maturity stages.

weight management, underutilized plants, pre-treatment, maturity index