Carofruit, Antioxidant Drink from Red Fruit Produced by IPB Students
Free radical is a compound which is one of the factors that contribute to declining of body function or development of degenerative diseases. Adequate antioxidant is needed to overcome the impact of free radical. Red fruit is an endemic fruit from Papua. People usually extract its oil as a medicine ingredient. Red fruit oil has antioxidant content which is good for health.
Ayu Nuraini, Dedi Kurniawan, and Zavira Ramadhanti are students of Agroindustrial Technology Department, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). Knowing red fruit's potency, they studied and made a functional drink made of red fruit with high antioxidant content. They call it Carofruit, functional drink made of red fruit and fruit extracts. Functional drinks are drinks that contain certain substances that promote health.
"According to 2011 data, almost 80 percent of deaths are caused by degenerative diseases, which is contributed by free radical from the environment. Antioxidant functions to minimize free radical that can decrease the function of organs. Because of that, we put a highlight on red fruit oil's function as antioxidant," said Dhanti.
Generally, if drunk, red fruit oil will give an unpleasant taste. Because of that, Ayu and the team tries to make the drink more tasty by applying certain formulation and methods.
"We made a formulation so that if our product is drunk, it will taste like water. There is a procedure called nano-emulsification, this procedure can be done in spontaneous or inversion methods. With this procedure we can make oil to dissolve with water and become nano-sized particles. These nano-particles are absorbed faster, thus will react fast inside the body. Thus, the antioxidant contained in the oil will inhibit the free radicals," explained Dedi.
Red fruit oil nano-emulsion concentrate is then mixed with certain fruits extract, then an organoleptic test is conducted afterwards. "We make nano-emulsion out of this oil, then we formulate with fruit extract. There are three fruit extracts that we use, which are soursop, pineapple, and papaya. From the test, soursop extract is the most favorable to respondents," said Ayu.
Under the supervision of Dr. Ir. Ade Iskandar, M.Si, these three students managed to pass the selection of Students Creativity Program of Research (PKM PE) which was held by Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti) of Republic of Indonesia. With this research, they hope that it will give an added value to red fruit and introduce the potency of red fruit as an antioxidant.
