Abstract
The effects of edible coatings based on gum arabic (GA) (0.5–1.5%), maize starch (MS) (0.5–1.5%), lemongrass oil (LO) (2–4%), and glycerol (GC) (0.5–1%) developed using response surface methodology (RSM) on “Wonderful” pomegranate fruit were studied. After 42 days of storage (5 ± 1 °C, 95 ± 2% RH) and 5 days at ambient temperature (20 ± 0.2 °C and 60 ± 10% RH), whole fruit were evaluated for weight loss (%) and pomegranate juice (PJ) for total soluble solids (°Brix), titratable acidity (% Citric acid), and antioxidant capacity. The optimization procedure was done using RSM and the response variables were mainly influenced by the concentrations of MS and GA. The optimized coating consisted of GA (0.5%), MS (0.5%), LO (3%), and GC (1.5%) with desirability of 0.614 (0—minimum and 1—maximum). The predicted values of response variables, for the coating were weight loss (%) = 5.51, TSS (°Brix) = 16.45, TA (% Citric acid) = 1.50, and antioxidant capacity (RSA = 58.13 mM AAE/mL PJ and FRAP = 40.03 mM TE/mL PJ). Therefore, the optimized coating formulation is a potential postharvest treatment for “Wonderful” pomegranate to inhibit weight loss and maintain overall quality during storage and shelf-life.
Highlights
IntroductionThe application of natural biopolymer-based packaging materials to reduce postharvest losses in fresh fruit and vegetables has grown into prominence [1,2]
In recent years, the application of natural biopolymer-based packaging materials to reduce postharvest losses in fresh fruit and vegetables has grown into prominence [1,2].This can be explained by high consumer demand for nutritious food of low toxicity and increased environmental waste problems derived from the disposal of non-biodegradable petrochemical-based plastic packaging materials [3,4]
Like Radical scavenging activity (RSA), the results suggest that the application of coatings only limited ferric ion reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) loss but did not halt the decrease in antioxidant capacity, which is related to loss of phenolic compounds and accumulation of reactive oxygen stress species under stress conditions of cold storage [5,78]
Summary
The application of natural biopolymer-based packaging materials to reduce postharvest losses in fresh fruit and vegetables has grown into prominence [1,2]. This can be explained by high consumer demand for nutritious food of low toxicity and increased environmental waste problems derived from the disposal of non-biodegradable petrochemical-based plastic packaging materials [3,4]. Studies have highlighted several benefits associated with the use of natural biopolymer-based packaging materials from renewable resources for food preservation, which include reduced waste disposal [5,6], reduction of product quality losses [7,8], enhanced nutrition [9], and individual packaging of particulate foods [10,11]. Gum arabic has the highest toxicology safety, according to the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health
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