Sugarcane pickles: from waste to processed food

The rational use of crop residues such as sugarcane tips to produce food that may serve man still requires a lot of research. Thus, we carry out a study that used the apical part of sugarcane stem (tip), very similar to the common palm heart, in the production of a new type of palm heart, coming from an abundant crop in Brazil that faces ecological problems due to the high generation of waste. This work aimed: (a) to adapt the common palm heart pickles production method to produce sugarcane pickles from the tips; (b) to determine the best maturation stage of sugarcane to obtain the highest nutritional quality of sugarcane pickles; and (c) to analyze the nutritional composition (moisture, ash, lipids, carbohydrates, proteins) of sugarcane pickles. Since there is no particular scientific methodology for this type of pickles a methodology adapted from traditional palm heart pickles processing was tested. Based on the results obtained, the adaptation of the traditional palm heart production method was satisfactory to produce sugarcane pickles. Furthermore, sugarcane pickles with shorter maturation are nutritionally superior when compared to those that were left for longer in the field.