Vol. 6, Issue 9 (2017)

Author(s):
Ninja Begum, Sanjib K Paul, Prasanna Kumar GV, Jatindra K Sahu and Saiyyad Alamdar Husain

Abstract:
An investigation study was undertaken to identify the optimum formulation of starch based edible coating and determine the effect of addition of Tulsi extract to optimized formulation of starch based edible coating on storage quality of tomatoes. The coating solutions were prepared by completely gelatinizing 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2 g/100 mL starch slurry in water at 95ºC for 30 minutes and adding glycerol (0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 mL) as plasticizer. The moisture loss, percent solubility of the coated film, TA and TSS of tomatoes after 10 days of coating were determined. Non-dominated sorting technique was applied to identify the optimum levels of starch and glycerol in the coating solution that minimized all the four storage attributes. The solution containing 1.5% starch and 0.5 mL glycerol was found to be best formulation for coating of tomatoes. The extract of Tulsi at 1%, 2% and 3% by volume was added to the optimized formulation and the effect of coating on weight loss, TSS, TA, pH and moisture content of tomatoes in every five days interval upto 20 days were studied. The weight loss, TSS and TA increased with increase in storage period for both coated and uncoated tomatoes. The moisture content and pH of tomato decreased with increase in storage period. The rate of increase and decrease of these parameters was found to be lowest for the optimized coating solution added with 3% Tulsi extract. Therefore, in order to increase the shelf life of tomatoes, coating using the starch based edible coating of 1.5% starch and 0.5 mL glycerol added with Tulsi extract upto 3% may be recommended.