Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Quality preservation of fresh-cut ?naspati? and ?babugosha? pear (Pyrus Communis l.) fruit using xanthan gum and cinnamic acid

International Conference and Exhibition on Food Processing & Technology

November 22-24, 2012 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, India

Sonu Sharma, and T. V. Ramana Rao

Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Pear (Pyrus communis L.) is popular for its unique fragrance, subtle aroma, sweetness, and crispness. The fresh pear fruits are commonly used for table purposes as it has good eating quality with few stone cells. Since last few years, the consumers? demand for ready to eat products has been increased to a greater extent attributed to their convenient and nutritious nature. Although fresh-cut pears have not been produced commercially, fruit marketers have shown an interest in developing such a product. However, fresh-cut fruit products have limited marketability due to cut surface browning which is attributed to phenolics compound oxidation by enzymes, such as polyphenol oxidase (PPO). Therefore, the present investigation was conducted to understand the responses of two cultivars of pear fruit i.e., ?Naspati? and ?Babugosha? towards browning behavior and the effect of Xanthan gum (0.25% w/v) applied either alone or in combination with cinnamic acid (0.1% w/v) as antioxidant compound in quality preservation of fresh-cut pear fruit kept at 4?C. Qualitative attributes were evaluated by measuring fresh weight loss, soluble solids content (SSC), total soluble sugars, total phenolic content, ascorbic acid, and antioxidant activity. The amount of vitamin C and total soluble sugars in ?Naspati? which rises as a consequence on minimal processing on 1st day, declined with the storage time in treated and untreated slices. However, in case of ?Babugosha? initial reduction was noticed, thereafter showed consistently increasing pattern on storage. Interestingly, soluble solids content, vitamin C, total soluble sugars, total phenolic content and antioxidant activity were found higher in ?Babugosha? as compared to ?Naspati?. The total phenolics content in treated and untreated fresh-cut pear fruit showed a declining trend towards storage time. Moreover, an abrupt decline in antioxidant activity was reported in pear slices of both cultivars. Finally, the visual quality analysis indicated that cinnamic acid (0.1% w/v) used with Xanthan gum (0.25%) could effectively prevent the occurrence of surface browning on processing of pear fruit cultivars through forming thin layer over it and extended the shelf-life up to 4 days for ?Naspati? and 8 days for ?Babugosha?. Thus, the present study indicated that the overall performance of ?Babugosha? was much better than that found for ?Naspati? towards minimal processing.

Biography :

Sonu Sharma has obtained her M. Sc. Degree in Botany from Sardar Patel University, Gujarat. and presently she is pursuing her Ph.D. in Botany in the same university. Her research study aims at postharvest quality maintenance of fresh cut fruits.