Value Addition in Underutilized Fruits

Abstract

Underutilized fruits are known for their wider adaptability to soil and climatic conditions in semiarid rainfed areas. Apart from this, they are a rich source of vitamins and minerals. Many of them have medicinal values par excellence. The fruits however have short fruiting season and are highly perishable in nature. There is a glut during the fruiting season and there is no market value. Value addition in these fruits with simple technologies which the farmers can adopt at their farm is the need of the hour. Efforts made at the station were successful and many products, viz., dried and dehydrated fruits, RTS, squash, fruit bars, candies, powders, wines, and condensed fruit juices through solar drying, were prepared. All the products were stored for a year under ambient conditions under central Gujarat conditions except condensed fruit juices. Fruits like ber, aonla, pomegranate, bael, date palm, sapota, and wood apple which are available locally were used. Chemical analysis of these fruits indicated that though there was a decrease in vitamins and mineral composition, they retain sufficient amount of them to meet the requirement of human body like vitamin C content in aonla squash or candies or mineral content in wood apple powder and date palm fruit bar. Use of these products will definitely help in arresting availability low nutritive food among the adivasi women and children.