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Submitted to: Proceedings of Florida State Horticultural Society
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 11/26/1997 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Previously developed in our laboratory was technology for removal of the peel of oranges and grapefruit with minimal labor, thus making it possible once again to produce citrus sections in the U.S. Sales of citrus sections have experienced somewhat slow growth, however, probably because these tend to lose its flavor on storage. The present study looks at storage properties of peeled citrus from the point of view of a comparison with whole citrus, because more is known about flavor of the latter. We showed that even when selecting the plastic bags that put the peeled sections in the same gas of the same oxygen content as experienced by whole fruit, the ethanol content of the peeled fruit increased much faster than that of whole fruit. Ethanol content is an indicator of flavor quality, generally the higher the ethanol, the lower the quality. We are uncertain, however, of the cause of the higher ethanol content of peeled fruit. Technical Abstract: Peeled oranges and grapefruit had about the same respiration rate as whole fruit. Using packaging film having O2 permeance of 6600 ml/m2day, bags of peeled fruit had headspace O2 and CO2 concentrations similar to the levels found in the interior gas of fruit coated with candelilla wax. With porous film having permeance of 37,000 ml/m2day the headspace gas concentrations were similar in composition to interior gases of uncoated fruit. Ethanol increased at a much faster rate for peeled fruit than for whole fruit. After 5 weeks storage the peeled fruit had yeast populations of about 1 x 106 cfu/g and appeared inedible. |
