African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (1), pp. 102-103, January 2005  

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2004 Academic Journals        

Full Length Research Paper

Retention of β-carotene in frozen carrots under varying conditions of temperature and time of storage

Debjani Dutta, Utpal Raychaudhuri, Runu Chakraborty*

Department of Food and Biochemical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700032, India. 

*Corresponding author. E-mail:  crunu@hotmail.com.

Accepted 15 August, 2004

Carrots were blanched and stored in a freezer to study the retention of β-carotene. Retention was found to be better in 3 min blanched samples than in 5 min ones. There was an increase in β-carotene content in carrots after 5 days at all storage temperatures: 0, –8, –14, and –18^oC. Decrease was found to be insignificant compared to the initial value even after 80 days of storage time at –18^oC and for 3 min blanch time.

Key words: Carrots, β-carotene, blanching, freezing, activation energy, storage time.