Acerola is amazing! In addition to having a fundamental role in health – mainly due to its vitamin C content, which so important for the immune system – this remarkable little fruit also has a surprising role for the meat market.

It is precisely at this moment that the importance of freeze-dried Acerola enters the meat market: as a natural alternative to synthetic ascorbic acid, erythorbate or sodium ascorbate.

The application possibilities of Liotécnica’s freeze-dried Acerola in meat products are related to its effects in three important aspects:

• In maintaining color: Vitamin C – which is present in acerola – acts as a reducing agent, delaying the oxidation of the iron ion present in myoglobin, maintaining the red color of the meat for longer.
• As a lipid antioxidant: As vitamin C is a reducing agent, it has the ability to chelate metals (which are pro-oxidant agents) and to sequester oxygen, acting as an antioxidant in doses above 100 ppm.
• As a curing accelerator, in cured: meat products (products with added salt, color fixing compounds such as nitrates and/or nitrites, sugar and spices), ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and its salts are reducing agents, which accelerate curing reactions by promoting the conversion from nitrous acid to nitric oxide, and by reducing metmyoglobin to myoglobin.