Stability Of Vitamin C And Beta-Carotene During Processing Of Papaya Guava Fruit Leather

Papayas and guavas are underutilized nutrient rich tropical fruits widely grown in Rwanda. It was envisaged that processing them into novel fruit leather would enhance their consumption. Hence, fruit leather was processed and their acceptability assessed after processing. Papaya (Mexican and Hawaiian varieties) and guava in 60: 40 ratio with sugar (45 %) and citric acid (1 %) were blended; dried mechanically and subjected to chemical and sensory analysis. Moisture content was high in fresh fruits both in papayas (89.2%), guavas (84.2%); and decreased (16.4%) upon leather processing. Total Soluble Solids increased from 8.8(0)Bx to 54.6 (0)Bx in Mexican papaya and 8.6 0Bx to 53 0Bx for Hawaiian papaya. Total reducing sugar doubled from approximately 8% - 9% in fresh fruits to 20% in the processed fruit leather. Carbohydrate increased by nine times in processed fruit leather when compare to fresh sample. Protein content in fresh papaya (0.55%) and guava (1.3%) increased to 3.35% in papaya leather. Fat in fresh fruits were low (0.2% - 0.5 %) but increased to 1.2% in leather. Vitamin C in both fresh fruits of papaya (20mg / 100g), irrespective of the variety, and guava (24.8 mg/ 100g) were nearly the same. Processing decreased it to 13.3 mg / 100g and 13.5 mg / 100g in the Mexican and Hawaiian variety respectively; titratable acidity increased while pH decreased (3.8). beta-carotene content in fresh papaya was quite less (0.120 mg / 100g) irrespective of its variety; while in guava it was 3.22 mg / 100g. Thermal processing brought about degradation of carotene content. There was no statistical difference (p-value>0.05; p-value>0.01) between papaya varieties.