Reducing post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables for ensuring food security – Case of Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, 70% of 21 million population live in non-urban areas, and agriculture provides livelihood for approximately 40% of them. The agricultural marketing process in the country is a complex operation due to services and functions involved in moving a crop product from where it was produced to where it would finally be consumed. Further, with a wide range of agricultural crops being produced, post-harvest handling process create different degrees of quantitative and qualitative losses in a complex market chain, which are estimated at 20% to 40% for vegetables and 30% - 40% for fruits. Improper and non-scientific post-harvest practices and handling, gaps in integration of cold chain practices & elements with post-harvest process, and lack of knowledge & awareness on many related aspects at grass root farmer level etc. appear to contribute to losses that finally prevent due economic benefits reaching the small-scale producer. In order to increase the effectiveness of post-harvest process handling of fruit and vegetables, appropriate corrective measures targeting small scale producers as well as commercial scale producers need to be popularized and practiced. At small scale producer level, promotion of appropriate low-cost post-harvest practices and procedures, facilitating low-cost cold chain elements and user-friendly information flow mechanism on market situation would certainly help avoid some of the steps that lead to losses. Monitoring system of commercial post-harvest handling process that ensure scientific bulk handling, storage and transportation of fruit and vegetables, properly designed economic centers with well regulated environmentcontrolled storages etc. would greatly reduce loses in bulk handling, ensuring better food security in the island.

Sensory perception of Brazilian petit suisse cheese by a consumer panel using three-way internal and external preference maps

This paper aims to study the sensory perception of Brazilian petit suisse cheese. Physicohemical (total sugar, total acidity, moisture, L*, a*, b* and soluble solids) physical (texture profile analysis- hardness, cohesiveness and gumminess) and sensory (color, appearance, taste, consistency and overall liking) analyses were performed. Three-way internal and external preference maps were used to evaluate the sensory profile of five different brands of strawberry flavor petit suisse (the only differences between them were the hydrocolloid bulking agents added) correlating with physical and physicochemical parameters. For this, the sisvar and sensoMaker software were used. According to the results, there is variation in the formulations of the petit suisse cheeses that are currently marketed in Brazil, with the exception of total acidity, moisture, and luminosity. Furtherore, Brazilian consumers prefer petit suisse cheese that has intermediate sweetness (7.67 °Bx to 11.67 °Bx) and reject those that are very sweet. In addition, products made with gelatin, pectin and locust bean and guar gums are more accepted.

Effects of fat replacing with eggplant puree on characteristics of chocolate spread

Nowadays, the interest in searching for natural sources to fat replacer has increased to reduce obesity and the related with health risks. Chocolate spread products are the most important products of candy that are popular and more consumed, especially by children where it is a source of energy also its high nutritional value. This research aims to assess the fat replacement by eggplant puree at 25% and 75 % from the total fat content and its effects on the sensory properties, texture, chemical composition, minerals content, fatty acid composition, polyphenol compound content as tannic acid and storage stability as free fatty acid (FFA), thiobarbituric acid (TBA), total plate count (TPC) and yeasts and molds count and compared by control sample. The obtained results showed that no significant difference in sensory properties between all the products, while Chocolate spread containing 25% eggplant puree substituted were the highest in most Texture properties, the chemical composition was affected by the increasing of eggplant puree, that noted an increasing moisture, ash, dietary fiber and minerals contents while the crude ether extract and energy values were significantly (p<0.05) decreased. The fatty acid profile for the three products was within the permissible limit, tannic acid values were 318.92, 401.28 and 661.46 mg/100g. Finally found that the FFA values which were ranged from 1.73% to 10.75%, TBA values which were ranged from 2.21 to 6.87 mg Malon-aldehyde/kg sample. The use of these fat replacements has improved all the properties of Chocolate spread except the storage stability.

A signature dish of Bihar: Litti and Chokha

Bihar is a land locked state lying in the eastern part of India. The word Bihar comes from the Sanskrit word Vihara meaning Buddhist Monasteries. The Mauryan Empire rose from Magadha. Buddhism, which is one of the biggest religions in the world, originated in Bihar and it is also home to the ancient Nalanda University, which was a centre of learning established during the 5th century. Litti Chokha a remarkable dish which comes from the state of Bihar is not only popular in India today, but has also made a special mark globally. Litti and Chokha are absolutely delicious and is the rustic way of cooking.