Development and evaluation of fruit leather from guava and jujube blend

Abstract

Fruits and vegetables have become as essential basis of human nutrition because they are nutrient rich foods. They contain many nutrients as well as many non-nutrient food ingredients that have role in preventing diseases. Guava (Psidium guajava) is a nutrient rich fruit having high amount of phytonutrients such as carotenoids and lycopene. Due to presence of antioxidants in lycopene it helps in the prevention of prostate cancer. Guava is highly fibre rich fruit and therefore helps diabetic’s patient to control their blood sugar level. Jujube (Ziziphus lotus) is multifunctional, nutritionally important and commercially viable fruit. Fresh fruit decay is a critical challenge in food industry. Jujube has great potential to deteriorate due to its higher water content which resulting in massive production loss of fruit after cultivation. Various techniques have been designed based on the characteristics of fruit in order to construct and utilize an appropriate treatment to make fruits easily assessable most of the year. Food drying is frequently used approach for extending the shelf life of fruits after cultivation through converting them into the multiple products such as edible fruit leather in order to minimize costs and enhance consumer profit.