Abstract
Nowadays, blend of different fruit juices as functional beverages is highly recommended to retain maximum concentration of nutrients due to their integrated effect against processing, to utilize underconsumed fruits and/or vegetables, and to provide healthy product to the consumer. The novelty in this particular work is optimization of blend using stevia-based low caloric extract as sweetener to replace high caloric sugar contents. For this purpose, juices of apple and carrot along with the extract of stevia leaves underwent the process optimization using a statistical approach of D-optimal mixture design. The best beverage formulation with high sensory scores was composed of apple juice 70%, carrot juice 27%, and stevia extract (5 g/100 ml) 3%. The optimized beverage was then processed with conventional pasteurization at 95°C for 1 min and compared with ultrasound processing for 15 min at four different amplitudes (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%). According to the observation, the treatment US60 (60% amplitude for 15 min) showed better retention for total phenolic content (78.65 ± 1.37 mg GAE/100 mL), total flavonoid content (23.53 ± 0.15 mg CE/100 mL), DPPH (66.43 ± 1.45 %), and FRAP (65.17 ± 1.10 mmol Trolox/100 mL) as compared to pasteurized and control samples while keeping other physicochemical properties in range. The research therefore indicates that ultrasound is good alternative to pasteurization and stevia to sugar in terms of functional beverage development.
Highlights
Functional foods possess such food components that provide health bene ts beyond ful llment of basic nutrients
The highest sensory scores for aroma, taste, color, aftertaste, and overall acceptability were obtained for formulation F4 composed of 70% apple juice, 27% carrot juice, and 3% stevia extract (5 g/100 ml) (Table 1), while for mouthfeel and texture, highest values were obtained for formulations F6 and F12, respectively
Addition of stevia solution influenced the sensory parameters of mixed fruit juices and was found to be a good replacer for high caloric
Summary
Functional foods possess such food components that provide health bene ts beyond ful llment of basic nutrients. Fruit beverages are considered as the most active functional food group being rich source of vitamins, bioactive components, ber, and/or minerals [1]. Beverages are in high demand due to their thirst quenching, nutritious, digestible, appetizing, and highly refreshing properties for human intake [2]. Blending of di erent fruit juices is one of the best methods as by changing the kind and quality of fruits, nutrients (e.g., vitamin and mineral) of the juices can be enhanced [3]. Pure or concentrated juices are less popular than blended or mixed fruit juices as mixed fruit juices have high value of natural aroma and health bene ts [4]. Mixed fruit beverage is in great demand in society for daily use as all types of fruits even those having low total soluble solids in it yet have high potential as they are more acidic, highly bitter, and having strong avor which can be masked in beverage by blending with other juicy fruits. e functionality of these fruit blends
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