Pumpkin applied to the food industry

The pumpkin belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae, a common vegetable found in climatic regions around the world. Species of Cucurbita maxima and Cucurbita moschata are the most cultivated species for exhibiting an excellent added value to agribusiness. They are excellent sources of B-complex vitamins (B1, B2 and B5), vitamin C, dietary fiber and minerals such as phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium and iron, and are distinguished by carotenoids, mainly β-carotene (activity pro-vitamin A), compounds involved in their coloring. Pumpkin flour is the main processed pumpkin product emerging as an alternative to reducing losses and increasing waste utilization. In the food industry, the use of pumpkin flour can be attributed to several factors, including long storage stability, ease of the storage, and important technological, nutritional and functional aspects, and could be applied to various products such as bread, soups and instant noodles. Thus, a pumpkin flour opens a range of opportunities for the development of new products, at this stage of production there is an application of several tools, those that are analyzed through sensory evaluation, which plays a relevant role in the evaluation of food products of relevant use, even a standardization and evaluation of the quality level. Thus, the sensory analysis technique offers different types of tests - discriminative, affective and descriptive, which are recommended according to the product and end-use. The descriptive tests (sensory profile description) and discriminative tests (the measurement of differences in perception) are the most used in the development of new products.