Volatile composition of raw and oven-cooked pulp of the fē’i banana (Musa troglodytarum L.) fruits from French Polynesia

Abstract

Volatile compounds from raw and oven-cooked pulp of the fē’i banana (Musa troglodytarum) were isolated by two different organic solvents (acetone and dichloromethane), and studied by gas chromatography/flame ionization detector (GC/FID) and GC/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). One hundred compounds were identified for the first time, according to their retention time on an apolar capillary column and their mass spectra. They are divided as follows: one sulfur compound (0.1% of the raw dichloromethane extract), four phenols (5.6–41.4%), six lactones (0.1–5.5%), ten hydrocarbons (0.2–3.1%), eleven esters (0.3–2.0%), sixteen miscellaneous compounds (6.1–76.4%), seventeen acids (1.1–43.7%), seventeen carbonyl compounds (0.2–44.3%) and eighteen alcohols (0.9–9.4%). Three compounds were found at a level greater than 1 mg/kg: p-vinyl guaiacol (1.9 mg/kg) in the raw fē’i banana acetone extract;; 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (7.4 mg/kg) in the oven-cooked fē’i banana acetone extract;; (E)-2-hexenal (2.4 mg/kg) and p-vinyl guaiacol (2.1 mg/kg) in the raw fē’i banana dichloromethane extract and 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (4.7 mg/kg) in the oven-cooked fē’i banana dichloromethane extract.

Keywords:

• Musa troglodytarum L.
• Musaceae
• fruit volatile composition
• 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural
• (E)-2-hexenal
• p-vinyl guaiacol

Acknowledgements

Sincere gratitude goes to Drs Angelina Claude-Lafontaine, Christina Schippa and Gerard Georges for their assistance and guidance during the analysis process.

Notes

¹ The volatile composition of three Polynesian fruit acetone extracts, including the raw fē’i banana, was presented during the International Colloquium on Aromatic and Medicinal Plants of French Overseas (GEPSUN-UPF, Tahiti- French Polynesia, July 2006).