Effects of pulsed light treatments on quality of fresh-cut apples

AVALOS LLANO, KARINA ROXANA; MARSELLÉS FONTANET, ÁNGEL ROBERT; MARTÍN-BELLOSO, OLGA; SOLIVA FORTUNY, ROBERT

Montpellier, Hérault

Congreso; 2012 EFFoST Annual Meeting; 2012

European Federation of Food Science & Technology (EFFoST)

This study investigated the effect of different pulsed light treatment intensities in combination with the use of a quality-stabilizing solution on the microbial quality, color, firmness and vitamin C content of fresh-cut "Golden delicious" apples during 15 days at 5 ºC. Aerobic bacteria counts were significantly reduced after applying the pulsed light treatments. In most cases, these reductions prevailed throughout storage, being the effect more pronounced when the applied dose increased. Hence, mesophilic and psychrophilic bacteria on treated fresh-cut apples after 15 days of storage were significantly reduced with respect to untreated samples by 1.24-3.50 logs and 0.80-1.75 logs respectively, and depending on the treatment intensity. Regarding molds and yeasts counts, significant reductions at day 15 were only noticeable in apples flashed with 32 J?cm-2. During storage, no significant differences in L* and a* were found between pulsed light untreated and treated samples. Treatments with an overall fluence of 8 J?cm-2 prevented fresh-cut apples from firmness loss with respect to untreated samples, whereas samples treated with 16 and 32 J?cm-2 exhibited firmness values through storage similar to those of untreated fresh-cut apples. The vitamin C content of untreated fresh-cut apples remained almost constant throughout storage. Interestingly, vitamin C levels were generally enhanced in the pulsed light treated samples. After 15 days of storage, the lowest energy doses promoted the highest vitamin C content. In contrast, fresh-cut apples exposed to 24 J?cm-2 exhibited similar vitamin C contents to those found in untreated samples. Our results suggest that the application of pulsed light at doses of 32 J?cm−2 may extend the shelf life of fresh-cut apples without dramatically affecting quality properties such as color, texture and vitamin C content. Furthermore, treatment dose of 16 J?cm−2 can be used although their beneficial effect against molds and yeasts lasts 10 days of storage.