STUDIES ON DRYING OF METHI LEAVES (Trigonella foenum graecum L.)
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Date
2009-07-15
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
Fenugreek, a native of South Eastern Europe and West Asia, is cultivated
as a leafy vegetable, condiment and as a medicinal plant. The fresh tender
leaves and stem are consumed as curried vegetables and the seeds are mainly
used as spice for flavoring almost all dishes. Dehydrated leafy vegetables have
the potential to become an important product because of relatively inexpensive,
quickly cookable and rich in several nutrients which are essential for human
health. Drying of leafy vegetables and making them use in the un-seasons
opens up new vistas in the field of food technology, as they are rich in
antioxidants and could be added as the natural antioxidants to develop new
commercial products. Hence, a research study was taken up to study the
drying, storage and packaging of fenugreek leafy vegetable, to serve as a
domestic and exportable food material.
Before drying the methi leaves, different types of pre-treatment were
imposed i.e., Dipping in 2% KMS for 15 min at room temperature, Dipping in
2% KMS, 0.1% MgCl2, 0.1% NaHCO3 for 15 min at room temperature, Dipping
in 2% KMS, 0.1% MgCl2, 0.1% NaHCO3 for 30 second in a warm water at 60ºC
and cooling immediately in tap water and Control (without pre-treatment). The
best selected pretreatment and Control were used for further dehydration
studies. Different drying methods like: Open sun drying, Tray drying,
Microwave drying and Vacuum oven drying were studied for producing a good
quality of dried product. The drying time for Sun drying varied between 14 and
12h, for Tray drying it was 12 and 11h and for microwave drying it varied
between 15 and10 min, for Vacuum oven drying varied from 9 and 7h for both
Control and pretreated methi leaves, respectively.
The quality of dried samples were also evaluated on the basis of physiconutritional
properties like, β-carotene, Ascorbic acid, chlorophyll content,
rehydration ratio, rehydration coefficient, colour and sensory properties. The
results revealed that the samples dried in micro-wave drying resulted in good
quality of dried methi product. Studies were also conducted on enhancement of
shelf life and storage stability of dried powder by packing them in polyethylene
(PE) (300, 400 and 500 G) and stored at different temperature (ambient and
10oC).The product dried in micro wave dryer and packed in PE of 500 G and
stored at 10oC as highly superior in terms of physical and nutritional
properties.
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