European Drying Conference -EuroDrying

Abstract: The influence of air drying temperature on antioxidant activity and carotenoids content in carrots has been investigated. Antioxidant activity and carotenoids content in fresh carrots were of 131.5±7.3 mg trolox/100 g d.m (CUPRAC assay) and 1.61±0.04 mg/g d.m., respectively. The losses of antioxidant activity and carotenoids were experimentally determined during the drying at different air temperatures (50, 60, and 80 ºC). The drying process significantly decreased the carrot antioxidant activity, the losses being 43%, 38% and 36.5% in dried carrots at 50, 60, and 80 ºC, respectively, for a final moisture content of 1kg/kg dm. However, carotenoids were relatively stable during the drying process, with a degradation of: 15.0%, 17.7%, and 25.4%, at 50, 60, and 80 ºC, respectively for samples dried until 1kg/kg dm. The degradation of these compounds followed a first order kinetic