MSc

Breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis belonging to the family, Moraceae is most
widely distributed species and exhibits great variability. It is a fast ripening climacteric
fruit resulting in faster depletion of stored food reserves. Hence the present study on
the nutritional and organoleptic qualities of value added products from breadfruit was
aimed at developing simple technologies which could be easily adopted to conserve
and preserve perishable commodity and minimize both their qualitative and
quantitative losses.
Fully matured firm breadfruits were collected from a local household for the
study. Two types of breadfruit chips namely, the fresh fried and blanched fried was
made and was analyzed for moisture, organoleptic qualities and effect of storage
containers at 15 days interval for a period of 60 days. There was a significant variation
among the types of chips, storage containers and time of storage with respect to the
moisture content. The moisture content increased with advancement of storage and
polyethylene bag (250 gauge) was found to be a better packaging system than pet jar.
With regard to the organoleptic qualities of the chips the fresh chips was found to be
more acceptable than the blanched fried chips. No significant changes in the quality
criteria's were observed in fresh chips stored in polyethylene bags upto 45 days.
The prepared breadfruit flour was stored for a period of 3 months and the
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chemical constituents, organoleptic qualities and the microbial load was analyzed at
monthly intervals. The moisture .content and TSS increased whereas the starch,
protein, fibre, calcium, phosphorus and iron reduced gradually with the advancement
of storage period. Statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant variations
in sensory qualities of the flour such as appearance, flavour, texture and taste on
storage but there was a significant reduction in the colour of the flour due to storage. A
gradual increase in the bacterial and fungal load with storage of breadfruit flour was
also observed whereas there was no traces of yeast found throughout the storage
period.

The organoleptic qualities of wafers showed a significant difference with
respect to the different treatments and storage period. The wafer T 7 (combination of
breadfruit flour, rice flour and ginger garlic paste in the ratio 40:40:20) was the best
followed by T, (combination of breadfruit flour and rice flour in the ratio 50:50), Ts
(combination of breadfruit flour, rice flour, ginger garlic paste and tomato paste in the
ratio 40:40:10:10) in the ratio and T6 (combination of breadfruit flour, rice flour and
tomato paste in the ratio 40:40:20). The overall acceptability was maximum for wafers
stored up to one month, later the acceptability scores were found to be decreasing
significantly.