Quality of Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juice produced with Low-Speed and High-Speed Juicers
Vegetables and fruits contain a great deal of vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and phytochemicals. Therefore, healthconcious consumer prefer beverage made from fresh fruits and vegetables due to their health benefits. This study was conducted to investigate differences in nutritional composition and sensory characteristics of juices depending on the apparatus used: either a low-speed juicer or high-speed blender. All ingredients could be made into juice without addition of water using the low speed juicer. However, addition of water was necessary to produce juice with the high-speed blender. Phenol and flavonoid content, were higher in juice made with the low-speed juicer than that produced with the high-speed blender and were correlated with DPPH radical scavenging ability. Protease activity of pineapples juices was not significantly different for the two methods, but protease activity of kiwi juice was about 8 times higher in juice made with low-speed juicer than that made with the high-speed blender. SOD activity also tended to be higher in the juice made with low-speed juicer. The concentration of dissolved oxygen in the juice made with high-speed blender was higher than that of juice made with a low-speed juicer and was correlated with color change. In addition, the high-speed blender caused an increase juice temperature, but temperature was not changed during use of the low-speed juicer. The noise level of the low-speed juicer was low, but the high-speed blender had high noise intensity comparable to that of railway or aircraft noise. In the sensory evaluation of juice, juice made with the low-speed juicer was preferred over juice made with the high-speed blender. As a result, the overall quality of the juice produced using the low-speed juicer was superior.