............................
> Future Students
> Current Students
> Alumni & Donors
........................
> Home
> Directory
> News & Events
> Pictorial Tour
> Directions
........................
>Biosystems Engineering
>Technology Systems Management
>Electrical Technology
......
> Research
> Scholarships
> Extension & Outreach
........................
Michigan State University
215 Farrall Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
Phone: 517-355-4720
Fax: 517-432-2892
MSU | Contact Us | Site
Process development of Value-added Cherry powder
By: Mitzi Ma, M.S. student Food Science and
Kirk Dolan, Associate Professor
History of cherries
Cherries have been in the U.S. since the 1600’s, when settlers brought them. Commercial production of cherries in the U.S. began in the mid-1800’s.Today, the United States produces an average of more than 620 million pounds of tart and sweet cherries. Michigan grows about 75% of the U.S. tart cherries, (250 million pounds), and about 20% of the sweet cherries (50 million lbs).
Health
Tart cherries may relieve the pain of arthritis and gout and help fight cancer and heart disease because of their high antioxidant levels. The latest tests show that tart cherries have high ORAC (oxygen radical absorbency capacity) values. ORAC measures the level of antioxidants in the food product. The higher the ORAC value, the more powerful the food is. Research also shows that tart cherries contain significant amounts of melatonin, a powerful antioxidant that is soluble in both fat and water.Tart cherry products have an ORAC unit ranging from 1700 – 12800 per 100 grams. Other fruits range from 700 – 5700 ORAC units per 100 grams. Nutritionists suggest that people consumer 3000 – 5000 ORAC units per day to be beneficial to health.
For more information on the history or health benefits of cherries, visit: http://www.cherrymkt.org/media/background_info.html and http://www.cherrymkt.org/health/index.html.
Production of Cherry Powder
Fresh cherries, and fruit in general, are perishable and have limited shelf life. Drying is one of the methods used in industry to prolong shelf life. Drying produces a stable and easily handled form of the juice. Dried juice products today are used mainly as convenient foods and have a long storage life at normal temperatures. Dried fruit powders are often used for making many delicious food products such as candy, toffee, fudge and hard candy, as well as other confectioneries and cosmetics. With high antioxidant power and health benefits of cherries, cherry powder can be added as an ingredient to designer foods, which are processed foods that are supplemented with food ingredients naturally rich in disease-preventing substance.
The drying techniques for the production of food powders include drum, freeze and spray drying. Spray drying is the most simple and commercially available method for converting a wide variety of liquid food products into a powder form. In the industry, spray drying is most often used to transform liquid milk into milk powder. The drying process can be completed within a short period of time (0.5-3 minutes), enabling the preparation of dried fruit powders with minimum heat degradation.
Spray drying involves particle formation and drying. A liquid feed is atomized into a spray of droplets. This increases the surface area of the droplets and allows rapid evaporation of moisture and rapid formation of dry particles.
Overby Farms has supplied a cherry syrup and cherry juice concentrate to MSU for spray drying. Tart cherry juice concentrate and dried tart cherries were identified as having one of the highest antioxidant capacity among selected fruits. The cherry syrup is produced from a cherry drying operation. The cherries are treated delicately to maintain the carcass, and are infused with cane sugar, producing the cherry syrup in the interim. The cherry juice concentrate is made by de-stemming and pitting the cherries, then simply squeezing the juice out from them.
When spray dried, products like cherry syrup and cherry juice concentrate are very high in sugar and pose a processing problem due to the stickiness. Stickiness causes the product to remain as syrup or stick on the drier chamber wall. This can lead to lower product yield and operating problems.
Stickiness has been related to the low glass transition temperature (Tg) in the sugars. Above Tg, the syrup becomes too sticky and will adhere to the dryer wall. Maintaining the chamber temperature of the spray dryer lower than that of the Tg could reduce deposition of such powders. To successfully dry these sugar-rich products, water was mixed with the cherry products to reduce the sugar content and a carrying agent, such as maltodextrin, was added to increase the Tg of the product. Since antioxidants are heat sensitive, the spray drying conditions were lowered to minimize the degradation of antioxidants in the cherry products. The first spray drying trial of the cherry syrup and cherry juice concentrate were completed successfully in the MSU dairy plant. Work is on-going to determine the optimum conditions and formulations to produce a commercial value-added cherry powder that may be used for additions to foods, such as breakfast cereals, snacks, confectioneries, baked goods, and pet foods.
Archives:
Food Engineering | Ecosystems Engineering
