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The dehydration of fruit from fig trees is normally achieved by sun drying. There is concern about the safety of the end product, mainly because there is a risk of the development of aflatoxins. These concerns can be overcome by artificial drying (oven dehydration). Fig fruits of a local cultivar, which were either pre-treated by blanching or blanching plus sulphuring or not treated at all, underwent hot air dehydration under mild processing conditions in a pilot airflow cabinet dryer. Sampling was carried out at regular intervals to calculate the rate of dehydration and assess quality changes. Microbiological counts and nonenzymatic browning were also monitored. Pretreatments resulted in a shorter processing time, compared with control fruits. In general, a falling dehydration rate period was observed. A dramatic loss of ascorbic acid was recorded, while an informal sensorial assay of the dried fruits gave a positive assessment.

The results of a study on the evolution of phenolic compounds, colour and antioxidant activity in two industrial red myrtle liqueurs during storage in bottles under different bottle headspace (constant or increasing) and exposure to light are reported. In the year of the study, the phenolic compounds showed considerable changes even in the liqueurs stored with constant headspace. The anthocyanins in particular, both free and combined, tended to decrease. As expected, the same phenomena were observed in an accelerated form in the product stored in bottles with increasing headspace. The colour, evaluated according to the classic spectrophotometric parameters of intensity and hue, showed marked variability, especially in samples in which headspace was progressively increased. The two liqueurs showed antioxidant capacity values, expressed as mM of Trolox, comparable to those of red wine. They significantly decreased during storage in the bottles with increasing headspace, while values remained almost constant in the others.

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