Nutritional quality of osmotically dehydrated aonla (Emblica officinalisG.) fruit segments

Abstract

Aonla (Emblica officinalis G.) is an important arid zone fruit crop. It is probably the only fruit to fill the gap of astringent food recommended by the Ayurvedic system of medicine for a balanced diet and sound health. Fruit is a very rich source of ascorbic acid. The highly acidic nature of fruits and limited availability makes it unsuitable for fresh consumption. Various products like murabba, candy, pickle, jam, sauce, squash, syrup are prepared from this fruit. But available information on preparation of dehydrated sweetened aonla segments is limited and during osmodehydration of aonla segments there is a change in biochemical composition of the fruit. Hence, there was a need to study and standardize a simple, economical and appropriate method for preparation of highly acceptable, good quality dehydrated sweetened aonla segments. With this view, the present investigation was undertaken to study osmotic dehydration of aonla fruits using sugar as an osmotic agent. The study was carried out during the year 2014-15 at the Post Harvest Technology laboratory, Horticultural College and Research Institute, Dr. Y.S.R.H.U., Venkataramannagudem, West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. These studies were aimed to know the effect of syrup concentrations at 50, 60 and 70 °Brix with solution temperatures of 50, 60 and 70°C maintained initially and later the segments were kept in the solutions for about 24 h of osmosis. The treatments recorded a range of moisture content (10.27-13.67%), ascorbic acid (283.33-208.30 mg 100 g(-1)), titrable acidity (1.90-0.53%), total soluble solids (36.40-56.13 °Brix), total sugars (41.56-65.04%) and total phenols (1230.00-410.00 mg 100 g(-1)) during the storage period. Irrespective of the treatments, no microorganism was detected up to the 120th day of the storage period. However, steeping of segments in 70 °Brix sugar syrup at 70°C for 24 h recorded superior nutritional and organoleptic quality.