Substituting exogenous citric acid and enrichment of bioactives in sweet orange squash by seabuckthorn pulp

Sweet orange juice of cv. Malta Common was enriched with functional bioactives using seabuckthorn pulp, for preparation of squash. Response surface design with three factors i.e. orange substituted with seabuckthorn pulp (18.18–51.82%), sugar (139.55–240.45% of mixed pulp used) and peel oil (0.98–6.02 mL/L of beverage) was used for the standardization. The product with 45% orange substituted with seabuckthorn pulp, 218.42% sugar and 5mL peel oil per L beverage was optimized with an overall desirability of 0.85. Optimized conditions demonstrate no need to add any synthetic citric acid and enrichment of the final beverage with respect to ascorbic acid, amino acids, total phenols, carotenoids by 273, 235, 519 and 3703% respectively over control. Thus, seabuckthorn pulp can completely substitute the requirement of exogenous addition of citric acid in preparation of orange based beverage besides enriching the product in its health promoting attributes.