PROCESS STANDARDIZATION AND EVALUATION OF GREEN PEAS (PISUM SATIVUM) USING SOLAR DEHYDRATION TECHNOLOGY

Fruits and vegetables play an important role in human nutrition, but due to their high perishable nature they cannot be stored for longer period. To store for long period, dehydration is one of the techniques developed which can persist for longer periods and are said to be rich sources of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. Emerging trends in food processing is one of the major aspects in recent times, where the present study is to utilize the importance of value addition to improve the nutritive value of food product and increase the efficiency of its processing. Hence solar dehydration technology was found to be an efficient process having less energy consumption and maximum retention of nutritive value. The objective of this study is to standardize the pretreatment for maximum chlorophyll retention of green peas and evaluation of the standardized product using solar dehydration technology. With this objective, the process procedure for green peas was standardized where 0.1% sodium bicarbonate and 0.1% magnesium oxide were used in water blanching for 4min. Solar dehydrated green peas were developed with 10 sunny hours (490c-510c) of drying time with a yield of 11.758% and moisture content 5.788%. The dried products were packed in two different packaging materials i.e., Aluminium and Polypropylene pouches. Shelf life studies were conducted at ambient and accelerated storage conditions in two different packaging materials for about 6 months. The results revealed that the solar dried green peas which were pretreated with 0.1% sodium bicarbonate and 0.1% magnesium oxide solution and packed in Aluminium pouch have retained most of the nutrients viz., Vitamin C, Chlorophyll content, and physico chemical properties. Sensory evaluation of dried green peas showed that color and flavor were superior in Aluminium pouch when compared with the product packed in polypropylene pouch. Microbial load was also within the limits, which indicated that the product can be shelf stable for a period of 6 months. The dehydrated green peas are rehydrated and used in pulav, upma, biryani