Beetroot juice potential in enhancing nutritional value and palatability of juice blends and whey-based beverages

Beetroot is a super food rich in antioxidants which have the ability to prevent oxidation in our cells. Despite the numerous health benefits beetroot remains underutilised. Keeping this in view, Beetroot juice was added for the preparation of juice blend and whey drink. The developed juice blend and whey drink were further subjected to physico-chemical and bioactive composition analysis. Results of physico-chemical properties revealed that TSS (9.01 and 7.12 °Brix) and pH (4.64 and 5.28) of juice blend and whey drink decreased in comparison to the beetroot juice (10.72°Brix and 6.40) whereas the acidity increased (0.67 and 0.45%) as that of the beetroot juice (0.06). Phenols decreased from 88.75 mg GAE/100g in beetroot juice to 77.90 and 55.05 GAE mg/100 g in juice blend and whey drink, respectively. Flavonoids content in beetroot juice was found to be 47. 87 mg QE/100 g which decreased to 23.33 mg/100 in juice blend and to 19.16 mg/100 g in whey drink. Anthocyanin content in beetroot juice, juice blend and whey drink was observed to be 7.71, 3.82 and 2.32 mg/100 g, respectively. Antioxidant activity of beetroot juice (50.10 %) significantly (p<0.01) increased when compared to antioxidant potential of juice blend (27.15%) and whey drink (26.49%). All the bioactive compounds of juice blend and whey drink decreased as compared to the beetroot juice as there was replacement of beetroot juice with other juices which contained comparatively lesser phenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins and antioxidant activity. Carotenoids being an exception which increased in the juice blend (0.36 mg/100g) as compared to beetroot juice (0.12 mg/100g). Betalains which were present only in beetroot juice significantly reduced in juice blend and whey drink as a result of the replacement with other juices. Betalains content decreased by 2.5 times in juice blend and 4.9 times decline was observed in the betalains content of whey drink as compared to the beetroot juice.