Studies on dehydration of some tropical fruits. Part I. Absorption and retention of sulphur dioxide during sulphuring and sulphiting.

The presence of sulphur dioxide in the dried
fruit is essential to prevent deterioration in its
natural colour, flavour and palatability for reasonably
long periods during storage and also to
protect some nutrients like ascorbic acid, etc.
For this, it is necessary to standardise conditions
among others for pre-treatment whereby enough
SO2 is taken up by the fruit before it goes into
the drier so that there is reasonable retention even
after losses during drying.
With the object of obtaining information on
various aspects of sulphuring and sulphiting of
tropical fruits like banana, pineapple, papaya and
mango, an investigation was carried out to study
the effect of factors like variety, maturity, size,
thickness, method of drying (dehydration or
sundrying) blanching etc., on the sulphur dioxide
absorption and retention by these fruits.
The results are briefly described in this paper.