Effects of Drying Process on the Physicochemical Properties of Nopal Cladodes at Different Maturity Stages

Chemical proximate analysis was done in order to determine the changes of nutritional characteristics of nopal powders from three different maturity stages 50, 100, and 150 days and obtained by three different drying processes: freeze dried, forced air oven, and tunnel. Results indicate that nopal p...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant foods for human nutrition (Dordrecht) 2012-03, Vol.67 (1), p.44-49
Main Authors: Contreras-Padilla, Margarita, Gutiérrez-Cortez, Elsa, Valderrama-Bravo, María del Carmen, Rojas-Molina, Isela, Espinosa-Arbeláez, Diego Germán, Suárez-Vargas, Raúl, Rodríguez-García, Mario Enrique
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Chemical Phenomena
Chemistry
Chemistry and Materials Science
Chemistry, Pharmaceutical
Chemistry/Food Science
Desiccation - methods
Dietary Fiber - analysis
Ecology
Feeding. Feeding behavior
Food engineering
Food industries
Food Science
Freeze Drying - methods
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
Humans
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
Nutrition
Opuntia - chemistry
Original Paper
Plant Physiology
Powders - chemistry
Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Chemical proximate analysis was done in order to determine the changes of nutritional characteristics of nopal powders from three different maturity stages 50, 100, and 150 days and obtained by three different drying processes: freeze dried, forced air oven, and tunnel. Results indicate that nopal powder obtained by the process of freeze dried retains higher contents of protein, soluble fiber, and fat than the other two processes. Also, freeze dried process had less effect on color hue variable. No changes were observed in insoluble fiber content, chroma and lightness with the three different drying processes. Furthermore, the soluble fibers decreased with the age of nopal while insoluble fibers and ash content shows an opposite trend. In addition, the luminosity and hue values did not show differences among the maturity stages studied. The high content of dietary fibers of nopal pad powder could to be an interesting source of these important components for human diets and also could be used in food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industry.
ISSN:0921-9668
1573-9104
DOI:10.1007/s11130-011-0265-x