1Department of Food Technology, Shoolini University, Solan-173 212, India
Department of Food Technology, G.J.U.S. & T., Hisar-125 001, India
*Corresponding author's e-mail: janghu_sandeep@rediffmail.com Present address: Food Technology Department, ITM University, Gwalior-475 001, India
Online published on 11 November, 2014.
An investigation was carried out to optimize the time, temperature and slice thickness for dehydration of tomato slices in vacuum oven so that the lycopene losses were minimized. The optimization was done using Box-Behnken method of design expert (R.S.M.), keeping other nutritional factors of tomato slices within range. Optimum conditions for vacuum drying were 2 hrs treatment time at at 80°C temperature and 7 mm slice thickness. The dehydrated product was found with 8.52 mg/100g lycopene which was close to the original value of lycopene found in raw tomatoes.
Dehydration, Lycopene, Process optimization, R.S.M, Tomato slices, Vacuum oven
