Abstract
Minimally processed vegetables are sensitive to leaves discoloration and quality deterioration, and these negative aspects can affect their shelf life. During the manufacturing processing,Valerianaleaves were submitted to different dipping acid solutions and then were stored at cold temperature in dark and in light to study the influence of the light exposure on their quality in terms of total free acidity, dry matter percentage, colour, water activity, total bacterial count, antioxidant components, and total antioxidant activity. The results suggest that dark storage is recommended for a better physicochemical quality ofValerianaleaves. In particular, light influenced significantly the browning index and hue angle with a significance level ofp<0.01andp<0.05, respectively, whereas both exposure conditions affected total bacterial count and pH (p<0.01). Dipping treatments had an effect on pH,aw, and total bacterial count, while the storage time influenced with highly significant differences the most of the studied parameters, except for the antioxidant compounds.
Highlights
IntroductionQuality changes are due to the product quality at the harvesting and storage conditions during the postharvest period
Up to ten days of storage, the changes in atmosphere composition could be achieved by natural tissues respiration. en, CO2 clearly increased for tissues respiration, as confirmed by Alegria et al [21], as well the bacterial growth
Is aspect cannot be necessarily related to tissues respiration, but it may be probably due to the gas permeability of the used packaging material because of a humidity change around the package after ten days of storage, as reported by Kader et al [22]: temperature, relative humidity, and air movement around the package can influence the permeability of the film
Summary
Quality changes are due to the product quality at the harvesting and storage conditions during the postharvest period External parameters, such as the colour, are very important in the leafy vegetables because of the appearance and the capacity to promote the purchasing by the consumer [1]. The yellowing of tissue is a natural discoloration due to the senescence of the leaves successive to the light exposure of the product For these reasons, the quanti cation of total pigments and phenols is very important to determinate the antioxidant activity of vegetables. E objective of this study is to investigate the in uence of light exposure and darkness on physical and chemical qualitative characteristics during the cold storage by monitoring the colour changes (tissue browning/yellowing), the antioxidant activity, and the hygienic state of the product during the storage
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