Changes in color and anthocyanin content of different dried products based on sweet cherries

LORENA FRANCESCHINIS; CAROLINA SCHEBOR; DANIELA SALVATORI

Color in Food: Technological and Psychophysical Aspects

CRC Press

Lugar: Boca Raton; Año: 2012; p. 181 - 190

Cherry consumption has an increasing impact, due to the health benefits associated with regular intake of anthocyanins (Kirakosyan et al. 2008). Due to harvest losses and excess production it is important to develop industrially-processed cherry products. Sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) contain substantial amounts of anthocyanins and polyphenolic compounds (Tural and Koca 2008). Besides the interest because of their healthpromoting properties, anthocyanins are responsible for the orange, red, and blue colors in many fruits and vegetables and have a critical role in the color quality of many fresh and processed products. It is widely known that drying at high temperatures and long times may cause damage in the nutritive and sensorial characteristics, affecting flavor, color and nutrients of the dried food, (Lin et al. 1998). Among the best food dehydration techniques, freeze-drying is known to produce the highest quality dehydrated products (Khalloufi and Ratti 2003), being much more effective in preserving valuable food compounds than tradicional methods. Color change during drying of a food product is indicative of the severity of the drying conditions, and is related to its pigment composition/concentration. Anthocyanic pigments are highly unstable and readily degrade during processing and storage of foodstuffs, which can have a dramatic impact on color quality and may also affect nutritional properties (Wrolstad et al. 2005b). A way of obtaining dried fruits of good quality is to use pre-drying treatments, such as osmotic dehydration, also termed as sugar infusion (Torregiani and Bertolo 2001). Although there have been several investigations on the effect of processing on anthocyanins levels and color development in cherries (Serrano et al. 2009) and other fruits like berries (Wojdylo et al. 2009), the available knowledge on changes after dehydration is still limited. Therefore the objective of this work was to analyze the effect of different pretreatments and 3 dehydration methods on color and anthocyanin content of two products obtained from sweet cherries (Lapins var.).