Process optimization for the development of fruit‐based diet drink: A low‐calorie approach

Abstract

The low-calorie diet drinks are entering into a new era as preferred by different age groups. All these beverages have no fruit or vegetable juice, which needs to be taken care of. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop a fruit-oriented (watermelon) diet drink using different variables, that is, tea extract (0–20%), herb extract (0–5%), and sorbitol (5–10%), and the optimization was carried out using CCD of RSM. The optimum quality attributes; TSS sucrose (14.85°B), glucose (14.96°B), titratable acidity (citric acid) (0.161%), pH (3.97), reducing sugars (1395 mg/100 ml), total sugars (10.97 g/100 ml), anti-diabetic assay (72.42%), calorific value (41.88 kcal/100 ml), total proteins (166.03 mg/100 ml), total phenolics (362.03 mg/100 ml), total tannins (173.20 mg/100 ml), anti-oxidant activity (56.02%), total flavonoids (1696 mg/100 ml), caffeine (45.33 mg/100 ml), sodium (14.35 ppm), potassium (69.03 ppm), and overall acceptability (8.08) was obtained using 8.74% tea extract, 2.5% herb extract, and 6.75% sorbitol with 0.853 desirability. FTIR analysis also confirmed the presence of physiochemical and phytochemicals and cluster analysis revealed that tea extract concentration has a more influence on the quality attributes of the drink. The developed conditions will help the industrials and researchers in the development of fruit-based diet drink, which has a high range of phytochemical potential. Practical applications The developed conditions will open a new door to the researchers and the diet drink industry for the development of fruit-based diet drinks, which have nutraceutical and antioxidant potential of fruits and other ingredients.