Investigating the Browning of a Fruit or Vegetable

Investigate browning of fruits and vegetables: Design, implement and report experiments to investigate the browning of apple of red, pink, grandma, braeburn, and Royal Gala from the viewpoint of temperature and pH. Assumption: Each apple is expected to become brown at a faster rate at warmer temperatures and optimum pH. The extent and rate of browning of each apple part will depend on the strength and amount of phenol present in each fraction.

Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) is known to be an important enzyme in the enzymatic browning of fruits, vegetables, beverages and seafood in the food industry. Browning of food leads to deterioration of quality and economic loss of food. Suppression of browning by physical treatment has been well developed and the presence of various chemical substances can also inhibit enzymatic browning. This article outlines various chemical inhibitors against enzymatic browning of foods. Enzymatic browning is one of the main causes of quality degradation of vegetables and fruits, beverages, and seafood. It accounts for over 50% of fruit loss. Controlling enzymatic browning is important to minimize losses and maintain the economic value of food. In animal tissues, melanin deposition is a process that causes dark pigmentation.

Suppression of enzymatic browning is essential to reduce economic losses in the processing of fruits and vegetables. Controlling enzymatic browning is important for better development of the food industry. The most common way to control browning is to add a sulphating agent to suppress PPO. However, sulfite is a toxic molecule that reacts with various bodily fluids and cellular components and may cause toxicity. Due to the adverse health effects of sulfite, brown tolerance of alternative compounds was investigated. Ideal compounds will be effective without any loss of quality (eg, taste, flavor, nutritional value) and toxicity as well as low cost compounds. Heretofore, there are many methods for inhibiting enzymatic browning, including the use of ascorbic acid, sodium chloride, kojic acid, 4-hexylresorcinol and the like.