Food Products with Mesocarp Babassu: A Review

The babassu palm is one of the most important representatives of the palm family in Brazil. The almond and mesocarp are the edible parts of the babassu, used in human food, animal and as medicine. Due to the fact that the babassu mesocarp is rich in starch and other nutrients, the objective of this work was to carry out a technological survey on the use of the mesocarp of babassu in the elaboration of food products such as biscuits, breads and cereal bars. The search for deposited patents was carried out in the databases of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), the European Patent Convention (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The database for the search for scientific articles was the Web of Science. When the "babassu and mesocarp" combinations were searched, seven patents were deposited with INPI. Among articles related to keywords, only one article was related to human food. In general, these results demonstrate a perspective of the technological application of the babassu mesocarp in the elaboration of food products, being a promising area.