Abstract
The major challenge influencing fruits economic value is the relatively short shelf-life. This study preserved fruit juice blend from pineapple, watermelon and orange using lime juice as biopreservative comparing its effectiveness with ascorbic acid and citric acid as chemical preservatives during storage at ambient temperature (27±2oC) for five weeks. The acceptability of the juice by consumer, biochemical changes and microbial load was also evaluated on a weekly basis. From the results, all the samples were acceptable on a 9-point hedonic scale (8.70-8.90) with 1% lime biopreserved juice blend was the most preferred. This shows that that lime effectively controlled the rate at which increase pH and decrease of TTA occurred during storage by double-fold when compared with ascorbic and citric acid used in the study. A minimal decrease in pH of 0.75% was documented during the five weeks of study. The specific gravity of the juice was relatively table during storage except for the unpreserved juice. Lime addition at 2 and 4% effectively suppressed fungal growth in the juice for five weeks of storage. Lime juice added as biopreservative at 4% showed the best bacteriostatic and fungistatic performance while the consistent increase in the bacteria growth from 60×102 - 11×1010 CFU/mL was recorded in unpreserved at ambient temperatures during storage. Ascorbic acid and citric acid as preservative effectively inhibited microbial growth of bacterial and fungal for 2 weeks, followed by a steady increase from 16×101 - 17×103 , 20×102 - 62×102 and 20×102 - 36×104 ; 21×102 - 48×102 CFU/mL respectively. Low Bacterial count was recorded in juice preserved with 1% lime (70×101 CFU/mL), 2% lime preserved (41×102 CFU/mL) and 4% lime (13×101 CFU/mL) at week 4 and week 5 respectively. The study established that lime is a good biopreservative with antimicrobial effect can serve as a replacement for chemical preservatives.
Highlights
Fruits are a seasonal crop in nature have driven researches on the processing of fruit juices and their preservation for usage through off-season (Almeida et al, 2019). 20-25% estimated postharvest losses due to post- due to prompt inadequate storage and transportation facilities (Igbinadolor et al, 2017)
Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) was set at 5% level of significance to test for any significant difference and compare the level of effectiveness of chemical preservatives and biopreservative on pineapple, watermelon and orange juice during storage across different treatments on all the parameter evaluated during five weeks of the study
There was no significant difference in the colour of pineapple watermelon orange juice preserved with ascorbic acid (PWOA), citric acid (PWOC), 2% lime (PWOL2) and 4% lime (POWL4) as they compete favorably
Summary
Fruits are a seasonal crop in nature have driven researches on the processing of fruit juices and their preservation for usage through off-season (Almeida et al, 2019). 20-25% estimated postharvest losses due to post- due to prompt inadequate storage and transportation facilities (Igbinadolor et al, 2017). Increasing awareness in citrus fruits consumption across the world as vital and good sources of folate, vitamin C, minerals and dietary fibre (Khan et al, 2017). Oranges, pineapple, watermelon, pawpaw, cashew abound in Nigeria and are consumed heavily in the season because storage technology is not available to preserve the excess production (Akusu et al, 2016). Lime juice contains organic acid which is majorly citric acid that can serve as a natural preservative. With the aim of assessing the acceptability of the new juice blends, study the effectiveness of lime as bio preservative in the juice blend compared to ascorbic acid and citric acid using enumeration of microbial load and changes in some physicochemical qualities of the juice during storage for 5 weeks at room temperature while reducing postharvest losses
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