PREPARATION OF PAPAYA SLABS FROM ORGANIC FARMED PAPAYA BY USING COUNTER FLOW TUNNEL DRIER; THEORY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

With the increase of population food security became a major concern for humans. Rapid changes in the life style of people and their food habits led to a great demand for processed fruits and vegetables as well as other commodities. Among fruit processing technologies dehydration os widely practiced over the world as . these method can increase the shelf-life of perishable fruit while maintaining its quality.Tunnel drier base dehydration is characterized by having several specifications, like improvement of palatability of the product, maintance high quality, nutritional value and reduction of spoilage rate etc.This dehydration method can be simplified by using a specially designed low cost drier. Losses of fruits and fruit products can be reduced to a considerable extent by educating the farmers, on some important aspects maturity indexes, proper harvesting methods and post technology etc.