Nutritional Composition and Product Development using Dragon Fruit (Hylocereus undatus)
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Date
2020
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COLLEGE OF HOME SCIENCE SWAMI KESHWANAND RAJASTHAN AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY BIKANER (RAJASTHAN)
Abstract
Dragon fruit is a savoury fruit with juicy pulp of creamy and attractive
texture having lots of small brittle seeds embedded in it. The presence of tiny
and edible black crunchy seeds gives it the resemblance of kiwi fruit. It is a
flowering cactus of Cactaceae family which has numerous nomenclatures like
‘pitaya’, ‘pitahaya’, ‘night blooming cereus’, ‘belle of the night’, ‘conderella plant’
and ‘queen of the night’. But it is mainly famous as ‘dragon fruit’ all over Asia
because of its skin covered with bracts (scales) similar to those of a dragon. It
has two variants namely Stenocereus (sour variety) and Hylocereus (sweet
variety). Furthermore, sweet dragon fruits are available in three varieties having
common characteristics in terms of shape (round or oval) and texture of skin
(leathery and leafy):
·
Hylocereus undatus (Pitaya blanca or white dragon fruit) is the most
abundant variety having white fleshed fruit with pink skin.
·
Hylocereus costaricensis (Pitaya roja or red dragon fruit, also called
Hylocereus polyrhizus) is red fleshed fruit with red skin.
·
Hylocereus megalanthus (Pitaya amarilla or yellow dragon fruit, also
called Selenicereus megalanthus) is white fleshed fruit with yellow skin.