PREPARATION AND STORAGE STABILITY OF PECTIN COATED BANANA CHIPS.

Abstract

This work was carried out to prepare pectin coated banana chips and to evaluate its sensory and physiochemical properties and storage stability. The unripe malbogh banana (Musa acuminata) were collected from Morang and sunflower oil was collected from local market of Dharan. Proximate analysis of raw banana and physiochemical analysis of sunflower oil was carried out. Bananas were washed, peeled, sliced, blanched and treated with KMS. Then, it was dipped in pectin solution, drained, dried and fried in sunflower oil. The chips were drained, cooled, packed in PP packaging and stored. The banana chips were prepared by coating pectin at 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 % and named as sample A, B, C, D, E and F respectively. The samples were subjected to sensory evaluation (appearance, color, taste, texture and overall acceptance) by quality scoring method for consumer acceptability and the sensory data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA (no blocking) using Genstat and means were compared using LSD at 5 % level of significance. The results shows that the pectin coating significantly improved the physicochemical attributes (fat, fibre, and carbohydrate) except moisture, protein and ash compared to non coated sample. The proximate composition of raw banana in terms of moisture content, crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, ash and carbohydrate were found to be 69.08, 1.15, 0.28, 0.51, 0.85 and 28.13 % respectively. The reduction of oil uptake was highest in 2.5 % pectin coated banana chips i.e., 30.22 %. From sensory evaluation, 1.5 % pectin coated banana chips was found to be significantly (p ≤ 0.05) superior. The shelf life of this product was estimated in terms of moisture, acid value and peroxide value and the sample was fit for consumption till the last day of analysis (40 days). These findings enhance our knowledge to produce better fried banana chips with less oil absorption using pectin coating.