Utilization of Hibiscus, Tamarind and Carob in Production of Low Calories Healthy Soft Drinks

The demand for carbonated beverages is increasing, offering opportunities to develop drinks with significant health benefits. Beverages containing carob, tamarind and hibiscus offer multiple nutritional and functional benefits and can serve as healthy alternatives to other soft drinks on the market. This is particularly important given the high sugar and calorie content of traditional soft drinks, which has been linked to increased issues associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease globally. The focus of the current work is to evaluate low-calorie soft drinks made from hibiscus, tamarind and carob and sweetened with erythritol that cater to diverse consumer segments, including diabetics and health-conscious individuals. Hibiscus, tamarind and carob extracts were sweetened with 0.5, 1 and 1.5 g erythritol sugar/200 ml carbonated beverage. The results showed that the alcoholic extract from hibiscus cups gave the highest content of phenols and flavonoids (70.3 mg gallic/g on DW and 7.8 mg catechin/g on DW), followed by carob pod alcoholic extract (19.3 mg gallic/g on DW) and tamarind alcoholic extract (11.6 mg gallic/g on DW). Tamarind gave a higher content of flavonoids (2.3 mg/g) than carob (1.2 mg/g); however, carob pods had the highest antioxidant activity (91.92%), followed by tamarind pulp (87.66%) and hibiscus cups (79.76%). The soft drinks of hibiscus and tamarind sweetened with erythritol at 1.5 g/200 ml gave the best sensory properties compared with control (adjusted by sucrose at 12% brix) and others concentrations used of erythritol sugar at (0.5 and 1.5 g /200 ml carbonated beverage). Carob pods soft drink sweetened with 0.5 g erythritol /200 ml gave the best sensory characteristics compared to the control sample and others concentrations of erythritol sugar at (1 and 1.5 g /200 ml carbonated beverage), which may be due to the high content of sugars in carob. Hibiscus carbonated beverage outperformed tamarind in terms of overall acceptability and carob carbonated beverage was the least acceptable in terms of sensory properties. Carob carbonated beverage recorded the highest antioxidant activity (90.9%) and phenolic content while representing the second highest in terms of flavonoids. Tamarind carbonated beverage ranked second in terms of antioxidant activity (86.0%) and phenolic content although it ranked first in terms of flavonoids. Hibiscus carbonated beverage recorded the lowest content in terms of antioxidant activity (79.36%), phenolic compounds and flavonoids. Hibiscus, tamarind and carob are a great choice for the production of carbonated beverages because they give the beverage desirable nutritional, cosmetic and medicinal qualities. Moreover, the simplicity of production and availability of raw materials allows for the stimulation of the economy by reducing dependence on multinational companies offering unhealthy or industrialized soft drinks.