| International Journal of Food Processing Technology (Volume 1 Issue 1) | |
| Relationship between Quality Parameters and the Overall Appearance in Lettuce during Storage |  |
| Pages 18-26 Bernardo Pace, Angela Cardinali, Isabella D’Antuono, Francesco Serio and Maria Cefola DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15379/2408-9826.2014.01.01.3Published: 28 August 2014 |
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| Abstract | |
| Fresh-cut and whole iceberg lettuce were stored in refrigerated condition and the main sensory (overall appearance: OA, browning index: BI), physical (colour variation: ΔE*), chemical (respiration activity: RA, ammonia content: A) and biochemical (total chlorophyll: TC, antioxidant activity: AA, total phenols: TP, o-quinones: o-q, polyphenol oxidase: PPO, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase: PAL and peroxidase: POD) traits were followed during the trial. Significant relationships among these parameters were assessed by principal component analysis (PCA) in order to find the main traits related to OA, in fresh-cut lettuce. Results from PCA showed that OA was inversely correlated with BI (r=-1.00), ΔE* (r= -0.98), A (r= -0.94), AA (r= -0.86), TP (r= -0.82), o-q (r= -0.89), and PAL (r= -0.80). Moreover, OA was positively related with RA (r= 1.00) and PPO activity (r= 0.96). Ammonia resulted significantly correlated with the main sensory, physical, chemical and biochemical parameters. Thus, this parameter, with ΔE* could be used as indicator of the product quality and acceptability in control quality procedures. In conclusion, rating scale used to estimate OA, resulted a valid method to evaluate the iceberg lettuce quality, since it showed significant relationships with the main analytical parameters. | |
| Keywords | |
| Browning phenomena, Lactuca sativa L., Principal component analysis, Rating scale. | |
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