Agriculture and Food Sciences Research

Nowadays osmodrying is proved to be an efficient technique of processing and preservation of fruits and vegetable varieties. The process of osmodehydration can promote the suitability of processing of various categories of fruits and vegetable produce with retention of organoleptic and nutritional characteristics. The aim of this project work is to prepare osmodried fruit cubes with satisfactory health benefits and good organoleptic acceptance. To carry out the project work, apples, banana and pineapple of fresh quality was purchased from local market adjacent to the institution. Now these fruits were blanched, peeled and were formulated using different concentrations of sugar solutions viz. 60%, 65% and 70% respectively. The dehydrated fruits were then subjected to physico-chemical and microbiological analysis. The chemical quality indexes viz.moisture, ash, fat and sugar were analyzed for the osmodried products. For osmotically dehydrated apple, pineapple and banana cubes, the estimated moisture ,ash, fat and sugar content were found as 77%, 77.64%, 79.24% ;0.12%, 0.06%, 0.08%; 0.1%, 0.07%, 0.08%; 24.2%, 25%, 26.5% and 10.71%, 17.25%, 10.76%; 0.1%, 0.12%, 0.01%; 0.001%, 0.002%, 0.02%; 28%, 29.60%, 30% and 16%, 13.37%, 13.97%; 2%, 2.2%, 2.6%; 0.005%, 0.01%, 0.01%; 18%, 20.30%, 21.70% with respect to preservation in 60%,65%,70% sugar syrup respectively. Microbiological analysis of osmodried apple, pineapple and banana revealed that negligible count of yeast and mold occurred at an incubation temperature and time of 37 degree centigrade for 72 hours with an optimum sugar concentration of 70%.Sensory evaluation in terms of appearance, color, flavor, body, mouthfeelness and overall acceptability of pineapple cube, apple cube and banana slices in different sugar concentrations viz. 60%, 65%, 70% were studied. Therefore in this study 70% sugar solution was proved efficient for osmodehydration in terms of its nutritional and organoleptic significance.