Wednesday 8 October 2008

Food Uses for Guava


Raw guavas are eaten out-of-hand, but are preferred seeded and served sliced as dessert or in salads. More commonly, the fruit is cooked and cooking eliminates the strong odor. A standard dessert throughout Latin America and the Spanish-speaking islands of the West Indies is stewed guava shells (cascos de guayaba). Guava halves with the central seed pulp removed are strained and added to the shells while cooking to enrich the syrup. The canned product is widely sold and the shells can also be quick-frozen. They are often served with cream cheese. Sometimes guavas are canned whole or cut in half without seed removal.

Bars of thick, rich guava paste and guava cheese are staple sweets, and guava jelly is almost universally marketed. Guava juice, made by boiling sliced, unseeded guavas and straining, is used in Hawaii in punch and ice cream sodas. A clear guava juice with all the ascorbic acid and other properties undamaged by excessive heat, is made in South Africa by trimming and mincing guavas, mixing with a natural fungal enzyme (now available under various trade names), letting stand for 18 hours at 120º to 130º F (49º-54º C) and filtering. It is made into sirup for use on waffles, ice cream, puddings and in milkshakes. Guava juice and nectar are among the popular canned or bottled fruit beverages of the Caribbean area. After washing and trimming, whole guavas in syrup or sprinkled with sugar can be put into plastic bags and quick-frozen.

There are innumerable recipes for utilizing guavas in pies, cakes, puddings, sauce, ice cream, jam, butter, marmalade, chutney, relish, catsup, and other products. In India, discoloration in canned guavas has been overcome by adding 0.06% citric acid and 0.125% ascorbic acid to the sirup. For pink sherbet, French researchers recommend 2 parts of the cultivar 'Acid Speer' and 6 parts 'Stone'. For white or pale-yellow sherbet, 2 parts 'Supreme' and 4 parts 'Large White'. In South Africa, a baby-food manufacturer markets a guava-tapioca product, and a guava extract prepared from small and overripe fruits is used as an ascorbic-acid enrichment for soft drinks and various foods.

Dehydrated guavas may be reduced to a powder which can be used to flavor ice cream, confections and fruit juices, or boiled with sugar to make jelly, or utilized as pectin to make jelly of low-pectin fruits. India finds it practical to dehydrate guavas during the seasonal glut for jelly-manufacture in the off-season. In 1947, Hawaii began sea shipment of frozen guava juice and puree in 5-gallon cans to processors on the mainland of the United States. Since 1975, Brazil has been exporting large quantities of guava paste, concentrated guava pulp, and guava shells not only to the United States but to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Japan.
Canned, frozen guava nectar is an important product in Hawaii and Puerto Rico but may be excessively gritty unless stone cells from the outer flesh and skin are reduced by use of a stone mill or removed by centrifuging.

Food Value Per 100 g of Edible Portion of Guava*

Calories 36-50
Moisture 77-86 g
Crude Fiber 2.8-5.5 g
Protein 0.9-1.0 g
Fat 0.1-0.5 g
Ash 0.43-0.7 g
Carbohydrates 9.5-10 g
Calcium 9.1-17 mg
Phosphorus 17.8-30 mg
Iron 0.30-0.70 mg
Carotene (Vitamin A) 200-400 I.U.
Thiamine 0.046 mg
Riboflavin 0.03-0.04 mg
Niacin 0.6-1.068 mg
Vitamin B3 40 I.U.
Vitamin G4 35 I.U.

Saturday 4 October 2008

A new product from guava that´s a health food

It's a new product. It's fantastic, It's a name you won't find in your dictionary. Find out today about GUAVA SAUCE

Our food company in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico is the creator and only producer of guava sauce for commercial consumption. Guava puree has been made by companies which produce baby food but in very small quantities and at high prices. Our product is a guava sauce that is much like applesauce but with many qualities that applesauce doesn’t have.

Guava is a tropical fruit with a distinctive tasty flavour. It is also high in vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants. Our finished product retains these beneficial nutrients.
Even though our product can be used in many ways it is especially tasty on pancakes, in yogurt, on ice cream or just naturally as it is sold.

We are a fledging company and we don’t have access to the special types of guava that we need in big quantities. Our facilities at this time do not warrant mass production. For these reasons we are not offering our product on the open market as we would not be able to fulfill the demand. We are looking for a small market of two tons of product a month or less that would help get us established.

Even though there are many types of guava in the world, most are full of seeds and have very little pulp. We have grown two special types of guava that are unique for the product that we are producing. These varieties are the Pear Guava and Portugal Guava.
We are looking to sign a contract with a single company for one year to give that company exclusive rights to our product and at the same time give that company a delicious new product that nobody else has on the market. The marketing advantages of our product are immense.

Some of these are:
a) Tropical fruits are the ‘in’ foods at this time
b) Our product has a high source of vitamin C
c) The antioxidant qualities of our product are saleable
d) The cost of the product is very reasonable
e) The guava sauce at this time is 100% natural with no preservatives
f) Our product is transported frozen
g) Our product has been analyzed by the Instituto Tecnologico de Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico and accepted as a project for postgraduate work for further development.
h) Our sauce can be used by itself, in smoothies or as a topping
i) We are close to your market and our shipping costs are very reasonable