Comparative assessment of guar gum for enhancing qualitative properties of dehydrated white skinned bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

The enhancement of physical qualitative properties of a dehydrated product is a highly desirable aspect in processing fresh vegetables. This study compared the use of guar gum (GG) as pre-treatment for enhancing physical qualitative properties of dehydrated white skinned bitter gourd (WSBG). The experiment primarily focused on comparing GG as solo pre-treatment or in combination with other pre-treatment viz. salt solution (SS) or potassium meta bisulphite (KMS) or sodium carbonate (SC) along with water blanching (Wat Blanch) or salt blanching (Sal Blanch). The results are indicative of a significant (P values of < 0.05) impact of using guar gum along with blanching before dehydration of WSBG at 60±5ºC in a mechanical dehydrator, in comparison to untreated control. The findings clearly exhibit solo GG sample T5 (Wat Blanch+1%GG) and combination GG sample T16 (2%Sal Blanch+0.2%KMS+1%SC+1%GG) as most superior with highest RR [9.23 (T5) & 11.30 (T16)] and BD [0.50 g/cm3 (T5) & 1.08 g/cm3 (T16)] in final dried product. The higher retention of RR and BD indicates that GG pretreated samples have better reconstitution than the control (T1). Hence, application of GG as a pre-treatment with blanching is beneficial for developing a quality product with good storage dynamics.