Osmotic dehydration kinetics of plantain (Musa paradisiaca) using a low-calorie sugar

Abstract Plantain is consumed as a stable food in most sub-Saharan countries and to some extent in southern America and Asia. To avoid deterioration of the plantain after harvest and to provide food variety, a reasonable quantity of plantain is now being transformed into flour. Osmotic dehydration (OD) is a critical step in the flour production process because it enhances the nutritional and sensory quality of the flour. There are efforts to use alternative osmotic dehydration agents to sucrose and salts to avoid their high content in the final product which is believed to have serious negative effects on the health of consumers. Suitable alternatives are low-calorie sugars (LCS) because they have low glycemic indices but which unfortunately have not been tested for the OD of plantain. This work investigated osmotic dehydration process of unripe plantain using a commonly consumed commercial LCS (Sussli) as an osmotic agent. The effect of slice thickness, solution concentration, sample solution ratio and temperature on water loss (WL) and solute gain (SG) on the osmotic dehydration of plantain ( Musa paradisiaca ) were evaluated. All parameters had a significant influence on water loss and solid gain. The osmotic dehydration was modeled using the Azuara, Peleg and Page models. Plantain slice of thickness 5 mm, LCS solution concentration of 50% at ambient temperature (25 ± 2 °C), and a sample/solution ratio of 1:10 (w/v) were judged best for osmotic treatment of plantains in LCS. Under these conditions, the water loss and solid gain were 20% and 1.73% respectively. The best-fitted model was Peleg model with the highest R 2 (0.999) and the least RMSE values.