Rationale
Bananas are tropical fruits, easily grown and are abundant in the tropical zone. Its scientific name is Musa sp.. Banana fruits contain high nutrition sources of carbohydrate, minerals, especially Potassium, and vitamins such as vitamin C, E, B1, B2, B3 and B12. In addition, they contain essential amino acids such as Tyrosine, Phenylalanine and Tryptophan, which are necessary for the human brain to produce chemicals for neuro-transmission.
Existing banana products are mainly in different forms of preserved fruits by dehydration such as sun-dried bananas, oven-dried bananas, sweet crispy bananas, banana flour or in other forms of preservation, without chemical or biochemical changes, such as caramel banana and other desserts from ripe bananas . These processes require the use of great amount of heat, which destroys certain nutritious substances. Moreover, those forms of preserved food are too common and unattractive to consumers.
Banana syrup is processed by ultrafiltration and followed by vacuum evaporation of the extracted banana juice, at low temperature in order to maintain the important nutrients and vitamins in the original banana.
The Banana Syrup offers the new way of collecting and storage the good nutrition of bananas in the bottle which shall be convenient for various consumption. The by-products of the process are also marketable, they include; Banana Vinegar, Banana Chili Sauce, Banana Wine and Banana Energy Drink, to name a few.
Bananas contain polyphenol, which will readily react with oxygen in the air, catalysed by its own Polyphenol Oxidase enzyme. This reaction results in browning effect of the product which generates the dark brown color substance called Melanin. Therefore, in the production processes of banana juice and other banana by-products as well as banana fruit products, the problem of browning effect must be solved. The solution is to maintain the pH value below 4.5 with citric acid or ascorbic acid in order to reduce the activity of Polyphenol Oxidase enzyme and to inhibit the oxidation reaction. The inhibitor or antioxidant of a biopolymer base is chosen for this purpose.
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