EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ALFALFA SAPONINS FOR INCREASING SHELF LIFE OF TOMATOES
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Date
2021-07-14
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Publisher
UMT.Lahore
Abstract
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important and widely cultivated
crops worldwide. It provides many nutritional benefits to the human body and also treat
various type of diseases. The worldwide tomatoes production is about 180 million tons
and Pakistan produce about 5,75,923 tons. Pakistan is an agriculture country and rural
community is directly linked with the agriculture sector for their livelihood therefore it
plays major role in economy of Pakistan. There are many biotic and abiotic factors that
affect the production of tomatoes and cause pre and post-harvest losses. The purpose of
this study was to use different concentration of alfalfa saponins rich extract in
nanoemulsions for increasing the shelf life of tomatoes. 40% (w/w) ethanolic extract
was selected for the extraction of saponins and then used in O/W emulsion as an
emulsifier but alfalfa saponins have weak stabilizing ability. To enhance its
encapsulating ability, it was combined with other synthetic emulsifiers such as ML-750
and Tween 20. These emulsifiers not only increase the emulsifying ability of saponins
but also stabilized emulsion for more than 7 days and used as a coating material to
enhance shelf life of tomatoes. Significant improvement was noticed in quality
attributes of tomatoes in term of firmness, odor, color, texture and overall acceptability.
Alfalfa saponins coating and Tween 20 with alfalfa saponins increased the shelf
stability of tomatoes as compare to uncoated and ML-750 combined with alfalfa
saponins coating. Furthermore, the results of this study proved that quality parameter
and overall shelf life of tomatoes can be increased by applying saponins coating in
combination of synthetic emulsifiers.