For Abstracts

Muhammad Inam-ur- Raheem, Aman-Ullah Malik,Nuzhat Huma,Hafiz Khuram wasim Aslam,Azam Shakeel and Hafiz Arbab sakandar

Present study was conducted in three phases to evaluate the effectiveness of firming and anti-browning agents alone (Phase-I and II) and in selective combinations (Phase-III) stored at low temperatures on the quality of fresh-cut guava slices. In all phases, uniform sized guava were picked, washed, sliced, treated and subjected for different analysis at 0, 6, 12, 18, 24 days of storage. In first phase guava slices were treated with different concentrations of firming (calcium chloride and calcium lactate) and anti-browning (ascorbic acid and cysteine) agents at 5 degrees C and analyzed for different physiochemical characteristics (firmness, browning, colour and organoleptic characteristics) to select most appropriate concentration from each chemical agent. While in the third phase, guava slices of two guava varieties (Surahi and Gola) were treated with the different combinations of best concentrations of firming and anti-browning agent and kept at two different temperatures (5 degrees C and 10 degrees C) and analyzed for various physiochemical characteristics (firmness, browning, colour, weight loss, pH, acidity, TSS, calcium, cysteine, lipase activity, organic acid, microbial count and organoleptic characteristics) to find out the most effective combination in extending the self-life of fresh-cut guava slices. As a result, in first phase, 2.7% calcium chloride and 3.6% calcium lactate maintained firmness, delayed browning and maintained the other characteristics of guava slices for longer storage interval. Whereas, in the second phase, 1.8% ascorbic acid and 0.8% cysteine were helped to delay browning and maintained better organoleptic characteristics throughout the storage period. However, in the third phase, the combination of 2.7% calcium chloride and 1.8% ascorbic acid gave overall best results than other treatments in most physico-chemical and organoleptic characteristics, especially of Gola variety, at 5 degrees C till 12 days.