Research
Nutritional Quality of Osmotically Dehydrated Catfish (Clarias garipinus) and Beef as Influenced by Sodium Chloride Concentration
In this work, the influence of sodium chloride (solute) concentration on the nutritional quality of osmotically dehydrated Catfish and beef were evaluated, using vitamin C as quality marker. Results show that at 95% confidence interval, NaCl concentrations play significant role in the stability of vitamin C in both catfish muscle and beef during osmotic dehydration. The vitamin C value of catfish degraded from 20.5% to 88.76% for corresponding NaCl concentration levels of 10% to 90% respectively. For beef, 18.46% to 69.23% reduction of vitamin C was recorded for respective 10% to 90% NaCl concentration. It is therefore advised that if sodium chloride must be used as solute in the osmotic dehydration of the above agricultural products, then, the dehydrated products must be fortified with adequate vitamin C before consumption.
Osmotic Dehydration Kinetics of Catfish (Clarias garipinus) Muscles in Sodium Chloride Solution
The effect of sodium chloride (solute) concentration and immersion time on weight reduction (WR), water loss (WL), solid gain (SG), mass shrinkage ratio (SR) and dehydration efficiency index (EI) on Catfish during osmotic dehydration were studied. Results show that, at 95% confidence level, all the above kinetic parameters were significantly affected by both immersion time and solute concentration levels. However, F7 which contains 70% sodium chloride and 30% water presented the best results in all kinetic parameters investigated and therefore recommended.
