Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Drying as an alternative to decrease harvest and postharvest losses of fruits in Brazil

6^th Global Summit and Expo on Food & Beverages

August 03-05, 2015 Orlando-FL, USA

Carolina Castilho Garcia

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world. With its wide expanse of land, the country presents a variety of climate especially tropical and subtropical areas. As a result, Brazil was the third greatest producer of fruits in 2013 according to FAO data. However, harvest and postharvest losses of perishable food such as fruits and vegetables are large in Brazil with approximate losses of 30-40%. So, it has been increased the interest in preventing these losses by processing the fruits or parts of the fruits and incorporating the processed fruits in products resulting in added value for the final product. In this context, drying is one of the most used processes aiming food preservation. But, it is well known that as a result of physical, chemical and biochemical changes occurs quality degradation of the food submitted to drying. So our group has been studying the use of edible coatings as a pre-treatment to drying in order to prevent oxidative damages that occur during the process. We studied the effects of using polysaccharide and protein coatings to coat fruits before drying. The selected coatings present low water vapor barrier and good gas barrier properties such as oxygen barrier resulting inefficient oxygen barrier and preventing the oxidation of the vitamin C of the fruits during drying (compared with non-coated samples). In addition coatings did not affect the drying efficiency of the fruits presenting as a promising alternative to enhance the quality of dehydrated foods.