Antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of organic fruits subjected to PEF-assisted osmotic dehydration

Urszula Tylewicz* (Corresponding Author), Gabriel Oliveira, Marie Alminger, Liisa Nohynek, Marco Dalla Rosa, Santina Romani

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The effect of PEF pre-treatment prior to osmotic dehydration on mass transfer parameters, colour, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties in organic strawberries and kiwifruits was evaluated. An increase of water loss in both fruits upon the application of combined processes was noticed (up to 21.6%), while a decrease of solid gain was observed only in kiwifruit samples dehydrated in sucrose (about 45%). In general, the combined treatments were beneficial for colour maintenance in both fruit tissues. The antioxidant capacity (DPPH) and activity (ORAC) increased after PEF treatment, however, all the combined treatments reduced significantly these values (of about 20 and 28% for strawberry and of about 56 and 35% for kiwifruit, respectively for DPPH and ORAC methods). In general, PEF treatment alone was also effective with regard to an increase in the antimicrobial activity of the samples against the tested microorganisms (B. subtilis, E.coli, S. cerevisiae). Industrial relevance: PEF pre-treatment coupled with osmotic dehydration could be applied at industrial level to obtain semi-dried fruit products. Moreover, both processes could be used as pre-treatments for drying process, in order to develop healthy and microbiologically stable fruit snacks. In fact, in the present work we observed that PEF pre-treatment alone promoted higher antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. The combined process decreased both parameters, suggesting that an accurate study is necessary to evaluate the benefits of these processes in terms of bioactive compounds retention and time and energy consumption in further drying process. The results of the present study could be used as a starting point for the industries to design novel products with intermediate moisture content intended for further processing.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102341
JournalInnovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies
Volume62
Early online date20 Mar 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2020
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

Financial support for this project is provided by funding bodies within the FP7 ERA-Net CORE Organic Plus, and with cofounds from the European Commission (no 618107 ).

Keywords

  • Antimicrobial activity
  • Antioxidant capacity
  • Organic fruit
  • Osmotic dehydration
  • Pulsed electric field

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