Use of coconut sugar as an alternative agent in osmotic dehydration of strawberries

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate coconut sugar (CS) as an alternative osmotic agent to sucrose for the osmotic dehydration (OD) of strawberries. OD was performed by immersing strawberries cut into 13.6 ± 0.4 mm edge cubes in osmotic solutions of CS or sucrose, at two different concentrations (40% and 60%, w/w), with and without application of vacuum (AV) in the first 20 min of the process. The total OD time was 300 min. Evaluations of the kinetics of solid gain (SG), water loss (WL), and weight reduction (WR) were performed at 30, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 min. SG, WL, and WR increased over the OD time and showed values of up to 7.94%, 63.40%, and 55.94%, respectively. AV increased WL, WR, shrinkage, pH, and total color difference and decreased anthocyanin, ascorbic acid (AA), phenolic, and antioxidant contents. The higher concentration led to higher SG, WL, WR, shrinkage, hardness, and lower moisture content, water activity, anthocyanin, AA, phenolic, and antioxidant contents. The use of CS instead of sucrose had little influence on strawberry properties, except pH and color responses. The optimal treatment was using a 60% CS solution without AV, showing a very distinct color change, hardness increased by approximately 4.5 times and maintenance of acidity, anthocyanins, AA, total phenolics, and antioxidants of 38.0%, 39.6%, 11.8%, 30.0%, 31.1%, and 30.3%, respectively, compared to fresh strawberries.Practical ApplicationOsmotic dehydration of fruit is a process traditionally carried out using sucrose. However, increasing health concerns have made consumers seek alternative sugars to sucrose. The use of coconut sugar made it possible to produce osmo‐dehydrated strawberries different from the traditional one, maintaining product quality and process efficiency.

Sustainable Utilization of Mushroom By-Products Processed with a Combined Osmotic Dehydration Pretreatment and a Hot-Air-Drying Step

“…where L*, a*, and b* are the luminosity, redness, and yellowness of the samples, respectively. Subscripts "t" and "0" refer to time t and zero time, respectively [31][32][33]. All the measurements were performed in triplicate.…”

The Effect of Ultrasound and Pulsed Electric Field on the Osmotic Dehydration Process of Strawberries

“…The content of anthocyanins in the SA_US1_2 sample did not differ statistically from the content of these chemical compounds in the reference sample (SA_2), but this difference was relatively big (31.3%). Anthocyanins are chemical compounds characterized by relatively high solubility in water, so their reduced retention may stem from the leaching process occurring during osmotic dehydration [73]. Both non-thermal preliminary treatments cause structural changes in the treated tissue.…”

“…It is worth mentioning that no statistically significant differences in the ascorbic acid content have been observed between sample SA_PEF2_2 and both US-treated samples. Vitamin C dissolves very well in water, which facilitates its leaching from the material during osmotic dehydration [73]. As mentioned above, cavitation could cause the disruption of covalent bonds and, as a result, the release of, e.g., ascorbic acid [69,70].…”

Effect of osmodehydration on the quality attributes of plum (Prunus domestica)

“…It was observed that the use of coconut sugar instead of sucrose does not show any significant difference in its properties except pH and colour responses. The optimum results were observed with a 60% solution of coconut sugar [2] . To decrease the duration of osmotic dehydration and increase the efficiency of moisture removal from the fruits, ultra-sound assisted osmotic dehydration (UAOD) was explored by Salehi and his co-workers in Iran [3] .…”