Microbial Quality, Vitamin, Mineral and Proximate Composition of Some Fresh Fruit Juice Samples

Abstract

The high rate of food fraud in the food industry has resulted in direct threat to consumer’s health. To address this, the present study investigated vitamin c, minerals, microbial, nutritional and sensory qualities of some freshly produced fruit juices in order to encourage consumers to make their own fruit juices in the comfort of their homes. The pH of the fruit juice samples ranged from 3.94 to 5.87. All the samples were rated the same in terms of sweetness and general acceptability. Mango and watermelon juices were rated the best in terms of appearance and flavor while orange and pineapple were rated the best in taste. The total bacterial, total enterobacteriaceae and total yeast counts ranged from 2.2x101 to 3.6x101, 2.6x101 to 3.8x101 and 3.9x101 to 4.8x101 CFU/ml respectively. Feacal coliforms were not detected in any of the samples. The proximate composition of the samples ranged from 7.10 to 12.25, 0.34 and 2.02, 0.06 and 1.01, 80.55 and 86.10 and 0.18 and 0.88% for crude protein, crude fibre, ether extract, moisture and total ash contents respectively. The result shows that the mineral composition of the fruit juice samples for iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), potassium (K), and calcium (Ca) ranged from 0.44 to 2.24, 11.95 to 14.78, 0.78 to 26.41, 96.37 to 169.20 and 6.94 to 36.34 mg/100 ml respectively. The vitamin C content was between 10.20 and 40.24 mg/100 ml. In view of sensory, microbial, nutritional, minerals and vitamin C properties of the fruit juice samples, the fruit juice samples were deemed fit for consumption.