THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PREVENTION MEASURES FOR QUALITY OF FRESH CARROTS

Abstract

In recent years there is an increase in consumption of food products and the supply of fresh vegetables to the consumer is getting more and more popular. However, this group of products is among the fastest perishing products. It is because of environmental and internal factors in vegetables during storage are unavoidable.
During the preparation for the market vegetables are being cleaned, washed, sanded, sorted and dried. This consumes a lot of energy and water. Different technological measures are used to reduce the consumption of natural resources during the preparation of products for the market and to slow down their quality changes. Ozone is an effective measure to slow down product bio destruction.
Ozone usage in small doses as a disinfectant is recognized as safe. Although there are a lot of publications in the usage of ozone, but its impact on vegetable qualitative indicators has not been sufficiently investigated. There is a lack of research in the analysis of the effects of ozonated water, which can be successfully used in vegetable washing technologies.
The article analyzes the effect of ozonated water treatment on fresh carrots colour and quantity of carotenoids.  The obtained data showed that the use of ozonated water in concentration of 1.53 ± 0.09 mg L^-1 did not have an effect on the amount carotenoids accumulated in the products. Also, ozonated water did not have significant effect on the colour of products.

 Keywords: Ozonized water, vegetables surface, quality, colour, carotenoids

Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.063