Physicochemical Characteristics of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) Chips Pre-treated by Commercial and Eggshell Extracted Calcium Chloride

Abstract

Chips is a snack with thin shape and crispy characteristic because of its low water content. As snack, good quality of chips does not emphasized on its nutritional value, but consumer rather focused on organoleptic properties. Increase the crispiness of sweet potato chips is desirable. This condition can be achieved by soaking chips using calcium solution. Chips found in market is usually soaked using commercial calcium chloride which usually derived from limestone. Other potential source of calcium chloride, which is easily found as food waste, is eggshell. Eggshell contains high amount of calcium. The aim of this research is to investigate the physicochemical properties of sweet potato chips pre-treated by commercial and eggshell extracted calcium chloride. Calcium chloride used in this research is obtained from eggshell extraction and commercial chemical product. The results revealed that each type of the calcium chloride has different purity which are 68,60% for eggshell extracted, and 74% for commercial calcium chloride. Three different concentration of calcium chloride were used (0,25%; 0,50%; 0,75%) to soak the sweet potato. From the research, it is shows that the best treatment is the usage of 0,75% eggshell calcium chloride which resulted in 4,93 % of water content, 2,42 % of ash content, and 20,14 of fat content. Calcium percentage in each pre-treatment process was reduced after each step of processing.