Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Vegetables have contributed largely towards food and nutritional security of the people, particularly the poor. India is the second largest producer of vegetables in the world after China. In the world production of vegetables was 212 million metric tons and Area was 11.35 million hectares (NHB 2022-2023). Many vegetables are seasonal and available for some days in the year, but they have a great demand throughout the year. Among the seasonal vegetables spine gourd (310MT), bitter gourd (1369MT) and sweet potato (1159MT) (NHB 2022-23) are the vegetables for common people to meet their daily nutritional requirement. Among the various preservation methods, drying is the most convenient and simplest method. It reduces weight and volume of the product which minimizes transportation cost and increase the shelf life. The present study is carried out to investigate drying characteristics of bitter gourd, spine gourd and sweet potato slices during osmotic and hot air tray drying. About 5-10 mm thick vegetables slices were osmosed with salt and sugar solution of 5, 10 and 15 oBrix at 30, 45 and 60 °C temperature and then dried in tray dryer. The tray drying behaviour was investigated for osmo-dehydrated bitter gourd, spine gourd and sweet potato, at air temperature of 40, 50 and 60 °C. It was observed that the moisture content of the product was reduced with drying time and no constant rate period was observed in tray drying. There was a variation in drying time from 420 to 900 min for the range of drying air temperatures (40-60 °C) taken for study. Minimum drying time was observed for high air temperature (60 °C) and maximum time was recorded for low air temperature (40 °C) for all air velocities. Quality of dried product in respect to colour was superior. The osmo-tray dried samples were found more acceptable after tray drying at 60 °C.
Institution: Dr. Y.S.R Horticultural University
Language: English
Topic: Food Drying and Modeling
Subfield: Food Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7127055441