ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management

Minimally processed vegetables in fresh,ready-to-cook form are gaining the confidence of both the trader and the consumer. This has led to a need to develop technology for increasing shelf life while maintaining the microbial, nutritional and sensory quality of minimally processed vegetables. This investigation was carried out on pumpkin in minimally processed form,packed in different polymeric film bags of varying permeabilities,creating an active equilibrium modified atmosphere within the package for the extention of storage life. It was observed that minimally processed pumpkin, which has a high respiratory rate at room
temperature (155.7 mg CO2/kg/h) could be stored for a
period of 25 days at 5B2 7C under modified atmosphere
packaging conditions with a minimum physiological
loss in weight of 0.06% and marginally low changes in biochemical constituents, such as vitamin C,total soluble solids, moisture, carotenoids and titrable acidity, enabling the retention of near-fresh quality. The microbial loads of mesophilic aerobes and coliforms, which were log 5.5 and log 4.3 were less than threshold level. There was no growth of yeasts and moulds or mesophilic spore formers at the end of the storage period.