Stability and Sensory Quality of Dried Papaya

Abstract

Fruit dehydration is a way of supplying the population with healthy and nutritious foods. The shelf life of dried fruit can be defined by the evaluation of changes occurred in chemical characteristics during storage. This study aims to evaluate the sensory quality and the stability of papaya cv. Tainung n° 1 dehydrated by convective drying. Fresh and dried papaya were evaluated for color, moisture, pH, acidity, water activity, soluble solids, vitamin C, carotenoids, total extractable polyphenols (TEP) and antioxidant activity (ABTS). The sensorial acceptance of the dried papaya was evaluated using a structured nine-point hedonic scale. For the stability study, the analysis of moisture, pH, titratable acidity, water activity, total carotenoids and vitamin C were carried out every 30 days of storage until 120 days. During storage, the moisture content of dried papaya remained constant, but there were undesirable changes in color, increase of acidity and reduction of soluble solids. The degradation of total carotenoids and vitamin C followed the first order reaction, and the half-life time was 346 days for carotenoids, whereas for vitamin C it was only 29 days. In the sensory analysis, the dried papaya received grades between 5.0 and 6.0 for all evaluated attributes. Dried papaya is recommended to be consumed up to 30 days, since within this period a product with higher total carotenoids content, vitamin C and with satisfactory physicochemical and sensorial characteristics were obtained.