Author(s):

Virendra Singh, Alok Shrivastava, KG Patel, Rita Markam and Deepa Hiremath

Abstract: Custard apple – one of the “super fruits” of 21st century in India is not only a delicious fruit but also possesses great nutritive and medicinal value. It contains many nutrients, anti oxidants and minerals that are beneficial for a healthy life. The fruit exhibits potent anti-diabetic, anti-obese, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties. However, one of the major drawbacks of the fruit is that it is characterized with high perishability and a short shelf life. The post-harvest losses are substantial due to heavy losses in firmness at room temperature. In these circumstances, preparation of Ready-To-Serve (RTS) beverage is one technique that fulfills the requirement of standard technique to reduce the post-harvest losses. The present study investigates the effect of acidity and ascorbic acid changes and effect on microbial load of on the storage of custard apple RTS beverage. Acidification of custard apple RTS from 0.3% to 0.61% and storage at ambient temperature resulted in marked reduction in total colony count during 6 month of storage; however, ascorbic acid degradation might be due to oxidation or irreversible conversion of L-ascorbic acid into dehydro ascorbic acid oxidase (ascorbimase). The results also indicated that relatively high concentration of vitamin C were present in custard apple RTS beverage containing high population of microorganisms.

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