Quality assessment of Stevia rebaudiana incorporated mango and pomegranate RTS beverages.
Jagadeesh S. L., Laxminarayan Hegde
Author Affiliation: Dept. of Post-harvest Technology, K.R.C. College of Horticulture, Arabhavi - 591 310, Belgaum, Karnataka, India.
Biomed 3 : 195-201
Abstract : Stevia is a plant that produces a variety of high potency low calorie sweeteners in its leaf tissue. Water based Stevia leaf extract was used to make Ready-to-Serve (RTS) beverages of mango and pomegranate to study its suitability as a sweetener. Organoleptic evaluation revealed a significantly low score for the RTS prepared with Stevia extract alone or in combination with cane sugar. The RTS prepared from cane sugar alone (Control) as a source of sweetness obtained the highest scores in both the fruits. However, in pomegranate the treatment T4 (750 ml fruit juice+3850 ml water+5 g citric acid+100 ml Stevia extract) ranked statistically on par with the control. A wide variation was found with respect to TSS but the titratable acidity did not vary among the different RTS treatments.