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MEALINESS OF FRUITS-CONSUMER PERCEPTION AND MEANS FOR DETECTION

Exploitable results

Near Infra Red (NIR) spectroscopy provides a tool to rapidly predict, in a non-destructive way, texture and taste attributes of agro-food products with emphasis on tomatoes and apples. To do so, samples of a tomato or apple variety, varying in texture and taste attributes, are analysed with regard to texture and taste attributes, using both physical, chemical or sensory methods. In addition NIR spectra are also recorded from the intact fruits. Using multivariate statistical techniques, models can be made which relate and predict the defined texture and taste attributes with the NIR spectra. Using these models texture and taste attributes of unknown samples can be predicted. In peaches, the destructive method for mealiness assessment (see result 1) has been used as a reference to check the feasibility of combining NIR and impact techniques in models for non-destructive mealiness assessment.
Chilling injury is a disorder which develops in tomatoes and other fruits under low temperature storage conditions (but above freezing temperatures). The critical temperature below which injury occurs may range from just above the freezing point of the tissue to 10-12°C. Chilling injury is characterised by the development of a mealy texture, accelerated softening relative to that of non-chilled fruits and non-uniform surface colour development. A method was developed to measure chilling injury in tomatoes in a destructive way. The method is based on the propagation of ultrasound in the fruit. The sound velocity but particularly the attenuation has been found to be useful as a measure of chilling injury. The technique can be used by horticultural auctions, commercial cool stores and retail organisations to measure temperature abuse in the cold chain and its effect on texture properties of tomatoes.
A procedure has been developed to generate mealy fruits. It can be used as a tool to generate fruits of different degrees of mealiness for research purposes, or as an accelerated procedure to evaluate the mealiness of a batch of fruits. A destructive method has been developed to measure mealiness in apples and peaches. The method is based on a measurement of juiciness and hardness based on a confined compression test, and on a measurement of crispiness using a shear rupture test. A scale which converts the instrument readings into a mealiness reading has been developed for several apple and peach varieties. In the accelerated test, fruits are kept in mealiness inducing conditions for a specified time, and subsequently the mealiness degree is measured. In this way the overall susceptibility of a batch of fruits to mealiness can be assessed.
Trained panels are available to assess quality attributes of apples (IFR, IATA, ATO), peaches (IATA) and tomatoes (IFR). These panels are available for assessing fruit quality, as a reference for developing new measurement methods for quality attributes of these fruits according to protocols which were developed for ths purpose.. A multilingual vocabulary for mealiness has been obtained using repertory grid studies.

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