Studies on Pretreatment of Minimally Processed Banana Central Core

In general, banana pseudo stem (central core) is an abundant natural resource in tropical and subtropical regions. Banana central core is used traditionally as vegetable and preparing soup. Banana central core is having property of dissolving kidney stone. Stem juice of banana central core is used for treating diarrhoea, dysentery, diabetes, antilithic, antiulcerogenic, hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, antioxidant actions inflammation etc. However, the usage of the central core is very low because of its tedious pre-preparation process. The main objective of this investigation is to evaluate the equipment designed by CIAE-IEP- NRCB, for the minimal processing of banana central core and to standardize the pretreatment to arrest the oxidation during processing with extended shelf life. Central core of banana has the property of quick oxidizing, because of the action of polyphenol oxidase. Various pretreatments like Citric Acid (CA), Ascorbic acid (AA) and Potassium Meta bisulphite (KMS) with varying concentrations (0.05, 0.1 and 0.2%) and combinations were used for standardizing the pretreatment method for minimal processing. Samples were stored under both ambient and refrigerated condition for analysis. They were standardized based on the analysis in colour, pH&Microbial load on daily basis. Based on the present investigation it has found that KMS at 0.2% and combination of KMS (0.1%) + AA (0.1%) gave good result. The colour and pH was acceptable level till day 3 in ambient and day 5 in refrigeration. There were no changes in colour and off odour till these days. Sensory evaluation conducted by 5 point hedonic scale gave pretreated day fifth refrigerated sample (0.1% KMS + 0.1% AA) as the best result.