Abstract

SENSORIAL ANALYSIS OF ERGOGENIC CHOCOLATE FOR SPORTS SUPPLEMENTATION

Carolayne Duraes Almeida and Lílian de Abreu Ferreira*

ABSTRACT

Caffeine is considered an ergogenic nutritional supplement for improving performance in endurance exercise and its use is quite popular in sports. It is easily found in capsules, and for this fact, considering that the development of other pharmaceutical form options has gained increasing importance in the market. The objective was to evaluate the acceptability of an ergogenic chocolate added with 200 mg of caffeine. The structured hedonic scale of nine points was used, which contains descriptive terms ranging from ―I liked it extremely‖ to ―I disliked it extremely‖. The attributes evaluated were: aroma, appearance, texture, flavor and overall impression. A purchase intention survey was also carried out, using a five-point scale between ―I would definitely not buy‖ and ―I would definitely buy‖. One hundred volunteers of both sexes, aged between 18 and 60 years participated in the sensory evaluation. The high concentration of caffeine and the bitter taste related to it, becomes a problem in the formulation, as it significantly affects mainly the taste, appearance and final texture of the chocolate, thus interfering with the acceptability of the product. It was possible to verify that the incorporation of caffeine into chocolate did not interfere in the sensory and structural quality of the product, as the incorporated flavorings were efficient in masking the bitter flavor of caffeine in high concentration. The formulation showed good sensory acceptance regarding the evaluated attributes, with an overall acceptability index of 87.6%. The purchase intent survey revealed that more than 65% would certainly or likely buy the product.

Keywords: caffeine. sensory analisys. performance-enhancing substances.