No abstract

Objetivo: Este trabalho objetiva analisar o ensino da Economia Ecológica e sua capacidade de formulação de uma pedagogia própria. Como referência teórica se utiliza de trabalhos produzidos por teóricos da educação superior, das ciências sociais e os principais teóricos do campo recente da Economia Ecológica, no intuito de buscar chaves metodológicas, algumas, em uso na experiência da Universidade Federal do Ceará. Métodos: A pesquisa analisou qualitativamente elementos da experiência do único curso de graduação em Economia Ecológica conhecido, a sua intencionalidade pedagógica, expressa no projeto de curso, articulado com o debate sobre as finalidades da universidade. Resultado: A pedagogia própria, ecossistêmica, em uma perspectiva biocêntrica necessita de um percurso histórico que contenha elaboração teórica e prática dos sujeitos envolvidos, a recente proposição de um bacharel em economia ecológica aponta para um horizonte de sociedades sustentáveis, a partir de princípios de justiça ambiental e da perspectiva biocêntrica.

The adaptation of cacao and the quality of its fruits produced in the Northeast, mainly in the Jaguaribe Valley - Ceara, is still under study. Therefore, the objective was to characterize the quality of fruits of six cocoa genotypes produced in the Mesoregion of Jaguaribe, Northeast Brazil. Orchards of six genotypes of Theobrama cacao (PS1319, CCN51, CEPEC 2002, CEPEC 2004, CEPEC 2005 and CEPEC 2006) were implanted in the city of Russas, Ceará, Brazil. In the fruit and vegetable processing laboratory, the fruits were dimensioned in terms of shape and pulped to determine the characteristics of pulp yield, pH, titratable acidity, soluble solids, ascorbic acid, chemical composition and bioactive compounds. According to the results obtained, the ‘PS1319’ genotype has higher pulp percentages, high levels of ascorbic acid, moisture and proteins, and can be considered the best genotype. However, if the goal is to produce the crop for the use of seeds in the chocolate industry, the ‘CCN51’ genotype showed better characteristics such as fresh weight and larger seed diameters, compared to the other genotypes. Therefore, the genotypes ‘PS1319’ and ‘CCN51’ are the most suitable when it is desired to use them in the production of food products such as chocolate.

Despite the high consumption of Japanese gherkin in the Northeast of Brazil, very few studies with this vegetable are found in the literature. As it is consumed raw or after cooking, being mainly consumed cooked, there was the interest to know if cooking could influence bioactive compounds content and antioxidant activity since high temperatures are related to benefits losses in food. This research aimed to compare the content of bioactive compounds and the antioxidant activity between in natura and cooked Japanese gherkin. Gherkins were submitted to quantification of carotenoids, anthocyanins, vitamin C and phenolic compounds, in addition to the antioxidant activity analyses through the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and the DPPH free radical scavenging methods. After cooking, carotenoids (from 4.90 to 4.59 ?g.g-1) and phenolic compounds (from 17.07 to 14.95 mg.100 g-1) content decreased, but with no significant difference between in natura and cooked samples. As for the antioxidant activity, the in natura gherkin showed a higher value (3.31 ?M Ferrous Sulfate.g-1) than the cooked one (1.96 ?M Ferrous Sulfate.g-1) for FRAP method, while for DPPH method no difference between the samples was detected. Anthocyanin and vitamin C were not detected in gherkins. We concluded that, in general, cooking did not affect the bioactive compounds of gherkins and that antioxidant activity increased.