食品加工および技術ジャーナル

概要

Effect of Different Processing Conditions on the Carotene Content of Different Vegetables

Somya Singh, Lalita Verma, Prachi Shukla, Aparna Agarwal , Risha Gupta

Benefits of β-Carotene are well known, most important being the pro vitamin A activity but experimental evidences are lacking regarding the effect of processing on β-Carotene. Processing is critical in determining the bioavailability of β-Carotene from foods and there is a perception that β-Carotene is destroyed by the heat process involved in cooking of vegetables. This study is intended to determine the stability of β-Carotene when selected vegetables are subjected to various processing techniques. Carrot and spinach were chosen for this study since they are the two most important sources. β-Carotene was quantified from vegetables by Reversed phased High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) System. The result indicated the control sample reading of carrot and spinach was 16833 μg/100 g and 19383 μg/100 g, the β-Carotene level increased substantially in all the processing conditions. Tray drying proved to be the best processing technique with highest percentage gain. Among the samples, Spinach was found to be the richest source of β-Carotene.