Abstract
Vitamin C is one of the most important vitamins in fruit based products and its stability is very critical to guarantee its availability. Stability of vitamin C in baobab, guava and pineapple juices stored at room (22.4°C±1.3), chilling (-1.2°C±0.1) and freezing (-17.3°C±0.2) temperatures and using 0.05% sodium benzoate, 0.005% sodium metabisulphite and combined use of sodium benzoate and metabisulphite at 0.04 and 0.005% respectively was investigated. Results from the study revealed that both storage conditions and levels of the preservatives used significantly affected vitamin C stability in all the three types of juices used. Vitamin C contents were 74.4, 52.4 and 34.7 mg/100 mL for baobab, guava and pineapple juices on the first day of processing. Furthermore, vitamin C was found to be more stable in freezing storage conditions and the combined use of sodium benzoate and sodium metabisulphite at 0.04 and 0.005%, respectively was more effective in stabilizing vitamin C in the fruit juices than the other preservative levels used. It can be concluded that vitamin C stability in the three types of juices was influenced by storage temperature conditions, storage time and levels and types of preservatives used. Key words: Stability, baobab, guava, pineapple, vitamin C, sodium benzoate.
Highlights
Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin and its nutritional importance to mankind is well established
Results on the stability of vitamin C in pineapple, guava and baobab juices as reflected by the level of its degradation at different storage conditions and different levels of sodium benzoate and metabisulphite are presented in Tables 1, 2 and 3
The results show that vitamin C was highly retained in freezing storage conditions and least retained in room storage conditions
Summary
Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin and its nutritional importance to mankind is well established. It is associated with many health benefits such as promoting health cell development, healing injuries and helps in absorption of minerals such as calcium. Many food products contain vitamin C but fruits and vegetables contain significantly higher amounts. Fruits are highly perishable and fruit based products such as juices are processed to ensure availability even when they are not in season. Preservatives such as sodium benzoate have been used in food products such as fruit juices to extend the shelf life. The use of preservatives such as citric acid (0.3%), sodium benzoate (0.015%), potassium sorbate (0.025%) and sucrose (10%) helped in extending the shelf life of sugar cane juice for 15 days at ambient temperature (26±2°C) and 35 days at 10°C (Mishra, 2011)
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