FORMULATION AND QUALITY STANDARDIZATION OF VALUE-ADDED GUAVA (Psidium guajava) JAM ENRICHED WITH HERBAL EXTRACT

Abstract

Fruits are rich source of essential vitamins and minerals, high in dietary fibre and provides a wide range of health boosting antioxidants such as phenols and flavonoids. Inclusion of fruits in diet can prevent a risk of heart diseases, cancer, diabetes etc. Guava fruit is a concentrated source of vitamin C, antioxidants, unsaturated fatty acids, dietary fibre etc. It is enriched with high amounts of vitamins and sufficient quantity of minerals. Jam is prepared from fruit pulp by boiling with sufficient quantity of sugar to a moderately thick consistency.  There are different types of fruit jams like strawberry jam, mango jam, pineapple jam, apple jam and mixed fruit jam.  Hence an attempt was made to find out the possibilities of mixing guava with Tulsi, ginger, mint leaves and lemon grass. Guava pulp was mixed with the various herbal sources in different ratio for the enhancement of guava jam. The research was carried out in February 2024 in the Postharvest Laboratory of Shri Durga Ji Post Graduate College, Chandeshwar, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.Guava is subtropical fruit crop belong from the family Myrtaceae. Guava being a highly perishable fruit due to high production of ethylene, a ripening hormones which reduces the shelf life of guava. Keeping this in view a research was conducted to process guava in jam enriched with different herbal natural sources such as Ginger, Tulsi, Mint leaves and Lemon grass.  The data was recorded at 60 days after storage and the completely randomized design was use to analyze the data. Among the various treatment applied the treatment T₈ (Guava pulp + Ginger (1.5%)) was found having the maximum TSS 68.39 ⁰Brix, Acidity % 20.87 %, Reducing sugar 22.62%, Non reducing sugar 40.59%, Total sugar 63.21%, and pH 3.96. This research will increase small to medium entrepreneurs to come over in processing industry and will have a great opportunity to grow in processing industry as only 2% of fruits and vegetables are processed in India.