PHYTO-CHEMICAL AND NUTRITIONAL PROFILING OF TENDU FRUIT (DIOSPYROS MELANOXYLON ROXB.) AND EVALUATION OF ITS SHELF STABILITY

Abstract

Tendu fruit is one of the important forest fruit found in major part of India. Originally, plant is well known for its leaves as Bidipatta for making bidi in tribal areas of India. Since, the tendu fruit supposedly have very short shelf-life, therefore, the present study has been undertaken to evaluate the shelf stability as well as the nutritional and phytochemical potential of the fruit.The complete proximate analysis including the mineral and vitamin profiling of the pulp, skin and seeds were done. The fruit pulp was found to be especially rich in calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, phosphorous, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C, with potassium being as high as 305.52±8.94 mg/100 gm (wet basis) . The fruit skin was found to have high amounts of crude fibre, potassium, calcium, phosphorous& magnesium, whereas for seeds, the values of protein, crude fibre and oil were 7.02±0.53 % 25.13±0.41 and 5.54±0.07 % respectively. The storage stability of the fresh fruit was found to be 5 days at 25°C and 65 % R.H. During storage, pH of fruit reduced drastically with an increase in acidity value from 0.12±0.00% to 2.09±0.01 %. The reading of Browning index (A420nm) also gradually increased from 0.2257 to 0.4766. The DPPH scavenging activity, Hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity,Hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, and Reducing power assay of fruits were observed to be very high. Gallic acid and Tannic acid content in fruits was reported as 28.43% and25.74 % respectively on dry basis.