27-2 |
Edible wheat gluten-based coatings: Application on refrigerated strawberries |
P. S. TANADA-PALMU and C. R. F. Grosso. Faculty of Food Engineering/Department of Food Planning and Nutrition, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Cidade Universitária Zeferino Vaz, Campinas - SP, 13083-970, Brazil Recent works are exploring the potential of the edible coatings to extend and maintain quality and shelf life of fresh product and to reduce the amount of disposable non-biodegradable packaging materials. Edible coatings and films can provide an alternative for extending post-harvest life of fresh fruits and vegetables. Highly perishable fruits like berries are the most appropriate products to protect with coatings, because of the additional cost resulting from the coatings treatment. The effect of different wheat gluten-based coating formulations on refrigerated strawberries quality was studied. Quality of fruits was evaluated by weight loss, firmness retention, microbial decay, surface color development, titratable acidity, total and soluble solids, sugar content and sensory evaluation. The bilayer coating of wheat gluten and lipids (beeswax, stearic and palmitic acids) had a significant effect on firmness retention and reducing weight loss of the coated fruits. Visually, on the day 16 the strawberries with the bilayer coating almost maintained their original size of the day 1, showing this coating could maintain the quality of the fruits during the time of storage. All the gluten coatings were effective on the senescence delay, evidenced by the decrease in color changes. During storage, titratable acidity and total solids decreased, and reducing and total sugar contents increased in all the coated and control strawberries. The addition of lipids to the gluten coatings showed a beneficial effect on extension of post-harvest life of strawberries.
Session 27, Food Packaging: General
|