| dc.description | Bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.) is an economically important medicinal plant
belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae (Chakravarty, 1990) commonly known as karela or
bitter melon. It is also known as “miracle fruit”, is a plant original from Nepal .The
immature fruits are eaten as vegetables which is highly nutritive and are a good source of
fibres, carbohydrates, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, phosphorus and iron (Sultana and Bari,
2003; Paul et al., 2009). But it is a fair source of protein, minerals, while poor source of
sugar (Kalra et al., 1988). Bitter gourd is one of the popular vegetables in Asia. Although
the seeds, leaves, and vines of bitter melon all have uses, the fruit is the safest and most
prevalent part of the plant used for food and medicine. Each 100g of edible portion of
fruits contains 83.2g water, 2.1g protein, 1.0 fat, 1.4g minerals, 1.7g fiber, 10.6g
carbohydrate, 23mg calcium, 38 mg phosphorus, 2.0 mg iron, 126 um carotene, 0.07mg
thiamine, 0.06mg riboflavin, 0.4mg niacin and 96mg vitamin C (Gopalan et al., 1982).
The bitter flavor is due to the alkaloid momordicine produced in fruit and leaves. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | The study was conducted to formulate bitter gourd juice from matured bitter gourd, to
study microbial analysis and also to evaluate the sensory attributes of the prepared bitter
gourd juice. Firm and Fresh bitter gourd was analyzed for its composition. The pulp was
prepared from matured bitter gourd. Calculated amount of sugar, citric acid and water
were mixed and heated for 60°C for 15 minutes and cooled down to 28°C temperature
and 0.6 gm potassium metabisulphite (KMS) was added to it and mixed thoroughly. The
finished products were kept into clean, dry and sterilized glass bottles and sealed
properly. The sealed bottles were stored in cool and dry places. The samples were
analyzed for proximate composition and sensory evaluation was done to detect the best
sample and sample differences. The results from panel taste revealed that the color,
flavor, texture and overall acceptability were the best in Sample S) The bests Sample S
contained 300 ml juice, sugar-90 gm, citric acid-3.5 gm, KMS-0.6 gm and water-605.9
ml for each 1000 ml of juice. The juice did not show any change in quality attributes
during the storage period till 2 to 4 months. The keeping quality, shelf life and
consumer’s acceptability of the products were investigated. The juice was also analyzed
for their TSS, acidity, pH and vitamin C. It was found that TSS and acidity increased
slightly but vitamin C and pH were decreased gradually during the storage periods.
Fading of colour and off flavour was found at the end of storage periods. This research
reveals that bitter gourd can be converted to nutritious juice and this increase the
preservation time as well as value of the product. | en_US |
