EVALUATION OF THREE DRYING TECHNIQUES FOR EXTENDING THE SHELF LIFE OF ONIONS

This study aimed to evaluate three drying techniques: solar drying, electric drying, and oven drying, to extend the shelf life of onions.The results showed that carbohydrate content increased for all three drying methods (6.08% to 84.33%).Vitamin C decreased during solar drying (6.07 mg to 4.43 mg), while it increased for the other two drying methods (28.3 mg for oven drying and 38.3 mg for electric drying).Acceptability testing indicated that samples obtained through electric drying were the most preferred with a rating of 7. Onions dried in the oven received a rating of 6, while those dried using solar drying were the least preferred with a rating of 5.