Carotenoid pigment loss of freeze-dried plant samples under different storage conditions

Enzyme extracted carotenoid pigments from orange peel, sweet potato and carrot samples were freeze-dried and stored at 25degreesC light, 25degreesC dark, 4degreesC and 40degreesC. Color losses of freeze-dried pigments under these storage conditions were compared with the nondried samples. For the freeze-dried samples, the highest pigment loss was in carrot pigments stored at 40degreesC (98.1 g/100g) while the lowest loss was in sweet potato pigments stored in 4degreesC (11.3 g/100 g) during 45 days of storage. For all three samples, pigment loss was minimum at 4degreesC and maximum at 40degreesC as expected. Storage under light did not have significant effect on the carotenoid loss compared with the samples stored at dark. Freeze-drying lowered the pigment loss for all samples under all storage conditions. (C) 2003 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.