The Effect of Ultraviolet and Heat Treatments on Microbial Stability, Antioxidant Activity and Sensory Properties of Ready-to-serve Tropical Almond Drink

There is a growing trend towards the production of ready to use multifunctional foods which has nutritional and medicinal value as well as good sensory properties. On the other hands, microbial safety of those foods is a major concern in food industry. Treatments used to ensure microbial safety of foods can affect the medicinal, nutritional and sensory properties of food. Aim of this study was to evaluate the affect of two such treatments namely UV irradiation and thermal processing on some important properties of ready to serve tropical almond drink. Prepared tropical almond ready to serve drink samples were subjected to UV irradiation and three different heat treatments. Then microbial stability, antioxidant activity and sensory properties of those treated samples were evaluated comparatively to non-treated samples. Two properties tested in this study, namely microbial stability and antioxidant activity was found to be affected by both treatments tested. Sensory properties of the product were found to be affected only by thermal processing. Compared to non-treated and thermal processed tropical almond ready to serve drinks, UV irradiated tropical almond ready to serve drinks were found to be microbiologically more safe and with preserved sensory properties. Hence, UV irradiation was identified as a suitable method to treat tropical almond ready to serve drinks to ensure microbial safety over thermal processing.