Changes in amygdalin content ofthe juice from japanese apricot (prunusmume) fruit, following heat concentration

In the fruit of Japanese apricot (Prunusmume), many useful medicinal compounds are contained. To gain these useful medicinal components efficiently, many manufacturing technologies were developed. One of these is the heat concentration of mume fruit juice. Heat concentration process concentrated the useful components effectively, and can be applied as the raw material preparation technique for the processed goods. In Ehime prefecture, for example, Izumirengekai manufactured the heat concentrated juice for two locally famous mume’s. This technique is well established. However, the effect of heat concentration,to each chemical componentin the raw juice is not clear. Especially, to clear the change in the amygdalin content from raw juice to heat concentrated that, is one of the most attractive in the human health point of view. To clear this problem, we have analyzed the chemical component of raw and heat concentrated juices of onekind of mume fruit (koume) with HPLC technique, and assigned the amygdalin signals with LC/MS and LC/MS/MS techniques. With the quantitative point of view, we found that the heat concentration process used in Izumirengekaidoes not induce any significant amygdalin content change in the juice. We also compared the chemical component of concentrated stock made with whole mume fruit with that of concentrated juice of whole mume fruit, qualitatively and found that almost of the same chemical components are included in the two samples. This result strongly suggests that the boiling of whole mume fruit may be the alternative technique to obtain the concentrated juice containing almost the same functional components as those found in heat concentrated whole mume juice prepared with the traditional technique.