Caracterização e irradiação gama (60Co) de arroz de diferentes cultivares no controle de insetos-pragas de grãos armazenados e de fungos

Abstract

Despite of the nutritional relevance and of the capacity of meeting the public demands, rice cultivars show a great variation in quality among the consumed cultivars and in the productive chain susceptible to pest insect infestation and fungus-contamination, especially toxin-producers. As the technique effective in food conservation, mainly in the control of insects and fungi, ionizing radiation presents itself as an alternative to warrant the quality of grains from the food safety viewpoint. Thus, with the present work, it was aimed to evaluate the technological, chemical and sensorial qualities of four rice cultivars, namely, BRSMG Caravera, BRSMG Relâmpago, BRS Primavera and BRSMG Seleta, in addition to evaluating the effect of gamma irradiation (60Co) in both the disinfestation and decontamination of grains, as well as in the formation of free radicals and on the physical, rheological and microstructural of the grains submitted to the irradiation at the doses of 0kGy, 6.5kGy and 7.5kGy. The results demonstrated that cultivar BRSMG Seleta presented the best chemical and sensorial quality. In addition, the use of gamma irradiation reduced significantly the insect and fungus population present in the rice and increased the quality of cooking of the grains. In that sense, it follows that gamma irradiation is effective in rice conservation, besides contributing to improve its technological qualities.