LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

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LWT - Food Science and Technology

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Microscopic features, mechanical and thermal properties

of osmotically dehydrated guavas
Leila Mendes Pereira a, Sandra Maria Carmello-Guerreiro b, Miriam Dupas Hubinger a, *
a
b

Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Food Engineering, State University of Campinas, P.O. Box 6121, CEP 13083-862, Campinas, SP, Brazil
Department of Botany, Biology Institute, State University of Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 14 August 2007
Received in revised form 30 May 2008
Accepted 2 June 2008

The effects of an osmotic dehydration process using sucrose and maltose solutions at 40 and 60  Brix on
microscopic features and some mechanical and thermal properties of guava tissue were studied. Also the
addition of calcium lactate to the sugar solutions, aiming at preserving the structure of the processed
fruits, was investigated. The guava texture (stress at failure) and the structure as observed by light microscopy were both evaluated, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to verify the interaction between calcium ions and cell wall pectin in the guava tissue. The calcium content of the
differently treated samples was also related to microscopic features, mechanical and thermal properties
of guavas. The osmotic process using sucrose and maltose solutions caused severe structural damage to
the guava tissue, and this effect was intensied at higher sugar concentrations and by the use of sucrose
solutions. The addition of calcium lactate promoted maintenance of the guava structure, showing turgid
cells with well-dened cellular contours, resulting in an increase in hardness and indicating bonding
between the Ca2 and cell wall pectin, which was conrmed by the DSC experiments.
2008 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Microscopy
Stress at failure
Calorimetric measurements

1. Introduction
The osmotic dehydration process has been discussed in recent
years as an important technology for the development of new fruit
and vegetable products. The process has been useful as a pretreatment to drying (Erle & Schubert, 2001; Lewicki & Lukaszuk,
a, Menegalli, Cunha, & Hubinger, 2005),
2000; Sanjinez-Argandon
freezing (Maestrelli, Scalzo, Lupi, Bertolo, & Torreggiani, 2001;
Sormani, Maf, Bertolo, & Torreggiani, 1999; Talens, MartinezNavarrete, Fito, & Chiralt, 2001) and frying (Krokida, Oreopoulou,
Maroulis, & Marinos-Kouris, 2001), as also as to produce minimally
processed products and fruit and vegetable ingredients (Escriche,
Chiralt, Moreno, & Serra, 2000; Panades et al., 2003; Pereira et al.,
2004; Rodrigues et al., 2006). Osmotic dehydration has also been
considered as an important preservation technique, since it allows
for the partial removal of water by contact of the vegetable tissue
with a solution of high osmotic pressure, providing products with
longer shelf-lives when used in combination with other preservation methods, with sensory characteristics similar to those of fresh
products and with a high nutritive value (Moreno, Chiralt, Escriche,
& Serra, 2000; Quiles et al., 2004).
In osmotic dehydration, the removal of water from the vegetable
tissue is accompanied by diffusion of solutes from the osmotic
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mhub@fea.unicamp.br (M.D. Hubinger).

solution into the tissue, and the loss of some native solutes. These
phenomena provoke changes in the structural characteristics of the
vegetable tissue depending on the process conditions and product
characteristics, reecting in the textural properties of the product
(Mastrangelo, Rojas, Castro, Gerschenson, & Alzamora, 2000;
Muntada, Gerschenson, Alzamora, & Castro, 1998; Sormani et al.,
1999).
Cell turgidity loss, deformation and/or cell wall rupture, splitting
and degradation of the middle lamella, membrane lysis (plasmalemma and tonoplast), cellular collapse, plasmolysis and tissue
shrinkage have been pointed out as the main effects of osmotic
dehydration on the cellular structure of plant tissues (Alzamora,
Gerschenson, Vidales, & Nieto, 1997; Lewicki & Porzecka-Pawlak,
2005; Mastrangelo et al., 2000; Nieto, Salvatori, Castro, & Alzamora,
2004; Quiles et al., 2004).
However, the use of calcium salts in the osmotic dehydration
solutions has been shown to be important in the structural preservation of the processed vegetable products. Microscopic studies
have revealed an enhancement of cell cohesion and turgidity and
an increase in cell wall integrity due to the application of calcium
salts to osmotically dehydrated fruits, resulting in products with
better texture characteristics (Mastrangelo et al., 2000; Pereira,
Carmello-Guerreiro, Bolini, Cunha, & Hubinger, 2007). The action of
calcium on the cellular structure can be explained by its effect on
the pectin matrix present in the cell wall of plant tissues. The interaction of Ca2 and pectin provides rigidity to the cell wall,

0023-6438/$34.00 2008 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2008.06.002

L.M. Pereira et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

favoring maintenance of the product texture (Jackman & Stanley,

1995).
The microscopy techniques, such as light microscopy and
scanning and transmission electron microscopy, have been successfully used to describe the structural changes caused by the
processing of fruits and vegetables, showing good agreement with
the texture characteristics of the products (Mastrangelo et al.,
2000; Muntada et al., 1998; Sormani et al., 1999; Vidales, Castro, &
Alzamora, 1998). However, as structural alterations are frequently
associated with changes in the cell wall of plant tissues, an evaluation of the rheological properties and thermal characteristics of
the cell wall material could also be used to improve the technology
employed in fruit and vegetable processing and to produce products with better properties (Kunzek, Kabbert, & Gloyna, 1999).
Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) has been used to study
the thermal properties of the cell wall material of plant tissues
(Georget, Smith, & Waldron, 1998, 1999), and represents an
interesting tool to investigate linkages between pectin molecules
and calcium ions in the cell wall of vegetable tissues, as observed by
Chang, Liao, and Wu (1996) and Lin, Yuen, and Varner (1991).
Moreover, it can help to elucidate the structural characterization of
tissue, complementing the microscopic evaluation and texture
measurements.
The objectives of this work were to verify the effects of the
osmotic dehydration process using sucrose and maltose solutions
on microscopic features, some mechanical and thermal properties
of guava tissue and to study the effect of applying calcium lactate to
the osmotic solutions, using light microscopy technique, texture
assays and differential scanning calorimetry, in order to verify interactions between the calcium ions and cell wall pectin in guava
tissue.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Materials
Red guavas (Psidium guajava L.) of the Paluma cultivar (Pereira
et al., 2007) supplied by Val Fruits Industry (Vista Alegre do Alto, SP,
Brazil) were used in the trials approximately 45 days after harvest,
when the fruits reached a suitable ripening grade. Fruit sampling
was based on ripening grade (78  Brix and 80% of skin yellowness), shape and size (7.8  0.4 cm length, 6.7  0.2 cm diameter,
1.0  0.1 cm pericarp thickness, and weight of 152.0  7.8 g).
2.2. Osmotic dehydration
The guavas were washed with tap water and immersed in
a 5.5 g kg1 solution of chlorinated sanitizer (165 ppm active
chlorine) for 10 min (Diversey Lever, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil). The
sanitized fruits were then peeled using a 20 g kg1 NaOH solution,
washed with tap water and then immersed in a fresh solution of the
5.5 g kg1 chlorinated sanitizer for 10 min. The guavas were then
cut into halves and the seeds removed.
Guava halves (one half guava per ask) were soaked in osmotic
solutions using a mass ratio of fruit to solution of 1:10. Two types of
sugar at two different concentrations, 40 and 60  Brix, were used
for the preparation of the osmotic solutions: sucrose (Copersucar
Uniao, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil) (aw 0.959  0.001 at 40  Brix and
aw 0.898  0.001 at 60  Brix) and maltose (Maltegill63/82, Cargill SA, Mairinque, SP, Brazil) (aw 0.956  0.001 at 40  Brix and
aw 0.890  0.001 at 60  Brix). Calcium lactate (15 g kg1) was
added to some of these solutions. The solutions together with the
samples were placed in a thermostatic shaker (TE 420, Tecnal,
Piracicaba, SP, Brazil) at 120 rpm and 40  C for 2 h (Pereira et al.,
2007), and the samples were subsequently rinsed with 2 g kg1
chlorinated sanitizer solution (60 ppm active chlorine) and placed

379

on absorbent paper to remove excess solution. The guava halves

were stored at 5  C until evaluated, which was done within 72 h
after treatment.
Fresh guava was used as the control in order to evaluate the
effect of the osmotic dehydration process conditions on the guava
properties.

2.3. Calcium content analysis

The calcium concentrations of the fresh and osmotically dehydrated samples were determined using an inductively coupled
plasma atomic emission spectrometer (ICP 2000, Baird, Massachusetts, USA) (AOAC, 2002). The calcium content was determined
in three different guava halves from each treatment and the mean
of the values obtained reported.

2.4. Light microscopy

Samples (5  5  3 mm) were cut from the eshy tissue of fresh
and osmotically dehydrated guavas, allowing for a view of the
specimen throughout the thickness of the guava halves, from the
surface exposed to the osmotic solution to the other side, where the
peel was removed. The samples were xed in 40 g kg1 glutaraldehyde in phosphate buffer (0.2 mol/L, pH 7.0) with 40 g kg1
added sucrose, and dehydrated in a graded ethanol series. The
dehydrated samples were embedded in hydroxyethyl methacrylate
historesin (Leica Microsystems, Jung, Heidelberger, Germany) and
sectioned using a rotary microtome (820 Spencer Microtome,
American Optical Corporation, New York, USA). Sample sections
measuring 8 mm were stained with Toluidine Blue O in acetate
buffer (0.1 mol/L, pH 4.7) and examined using an Olympus BX 51
light microscope (Olympus Optical Co., Tokyo, Japan). For each
treatment, two samples from different fruits were used for the
microscopic evaluation.

2.5. Mechanical properties evaluation

The guava texture characteristics were analyzed by uniaxial
compression tests using a Universal Testing Machine (TA.XT2i
Texture Analyzer, Stable Micro Systems, Godalming, Surrey,
England). Stress at failure values were determined using a 30 mm
diameter lubricated acrylic plate at a crosshead speed of 1 mm s1
until 70% sample deformation. A 10 mm diameter cylindrical
sample removed from the center of the guava halves was used for
this assay. The force and height data obtained from this test were
converted to Hencky stress (sH) and strain (3H), according to Eqs. (1)
and (2), and the stress at failure was determined from the peak of
the stressstrain curve.

sH

Ft
At

3H ln

(1)

Ht
H0

(2)

where F(t), A(t) and H(t) are the force, product area and height at
time t, respectively, and H0 is the initial product height.
Five guava halves from each treatment were taken for the texture measurements and the mean of the values obtained reported.
The values for stress at failure were normalized as the ratio
between the values for the treated and untreated (fresh) fruits, in
order to minimize biological variability.

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L.M. Pereira et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

2.6. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)

Differential scanning calorimetry was used to verify the
interaction between calcium ions and cell wall pectin in the guava
tissue. Due to the complexity of vegetable tissues, the cell wall of
the guavas was extracted and used as a model system, in order to
aid understanding of the structural changes caused by the osmotic
dehydration process and to study the effect of adding calcium.
The cell wall was extracted according to the methodology of
Mitcham and McDonald (1992) with some modications. The tissue (300 g) was homogenized in 300 ml ethanol at 800 g kg1 using
a household blender and ltered through a nylon sieve. The material retained on the sieve was washed with 600 ml phosphate
buffer (50 mmol/L, pH 6.8) and ltered. Two hundred milliliter of
phenol:acetic acid:water (2:1:1, v/v/v) was then added to the material and maintained for 20 min before ltering. The material
retained was washed again with phosphate buffer (60 ml), ltered
again, and then washed with 200 ml chloroform:methanol (1:1, v/
v) and ltered under aspiration. The material obtained was dried by
washing with acetone (600 ml) (Vilas Boas, 1998).
The DSC analysis of the cell wall samples was performed using
a modulated differential scanning calorimeter TMDSC 2920 (TA
Instruments, New Castle, USA), working in the conventional mode
and tted with a refrigerated cooling system (RCS). Dry helium at
a ow rate of 25 ml min1 was used as the purge gas, and dry nitrogen (150 ml min1) was used in the RCS unit. The temperature
and enthalpy calibrations were carried out using indium. The
samples (about 8 mg) were sealed in hermetic aluminum pans (TA
Instruments, New Castle, USA) and heated at 10  C min1 from 25 to
220  C. An empty aluminum pan was used as the reference and the
scans were performed at least in triplicate. DSC scans were evaluated for onset (To) and peak (TP) melting temperatures of the pectin.
In order to identify the peaks in the thermograms, samples of
commercial citrus peel pectin (type 8002/R, 2630% DE, 1521%
DA) (CP Kelco Brasil SA, Limeira, SP, Brazil) were also analyzed.
2.7. Statistical analyses
The results were statistically analyzed by the analysis of variance to determine signicant differences between the samples

Fig. 1. Micrographs of parenchyma tissue of fresh guavas. Scale bar: 70 mm.

subjected to different treatments, using the software STATISTICA

5.0 (StatSoft, Inc., Tulsa, OK, USA). The analysis of the means was
performed using the Tukey procedure at P < 0.05.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Guava cell structure
The microscopic features evaluation of the guavas showed that
the fresh fruit tissue presented turgid cells with a consistent cell
wall structure (Fig. 1), and that the osmotic dehydration process
using sucrose and maltose solutions, caused severe structural
damage to this tissue (Fig. 2). The tissue of the osmotically dehydrated guavas presented extensive cell plasmolysis and the cells
appeared to be deformed and collapsed. Moreover, for fruits treated
at higher sugar solution concentrations (60  Brix), more intense cell
plasmolysis (black arrows) and greater cell collapse (white arrows)
were observed (Fig. 2b and e).
However, the addition of calcium ions to the osmotic solutions
resulted in linkages between these ions and the pectin of the cell
walls and middle lamella, promoting the structural preservation of

Fig. 2. Micrographs of parenchyma tissue of guavas osmotically dehydrated in sucrose (a, b and c) and maltose (d, e and f) solutions at the samples surface. (a) and (d) 40  Brix
solutions with no addition of calcium; (b) and (e) 60  Brix solutions with no addition of calcium and (c) and (f) 60  Brix solutions with the addition of calcium. Black arrows: cell
plasmolysis; white arrows: cell collapse. Scale bar: 70 mm.

L.M. Pereira et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

the osmotically dehydrated guavas. The tissue of guavas treated

with calcium lactate (Fig. 2c and f), osmo-dehydrated in sucrose or
maltose solutions at 40 or 60  Brix, showed turgid cells with a thick
cell wall and well-dened cell contour, as observed in fresh guava.
The micrographs of the samples treated with 40 and 60  Brix sugar
solutions with the addition of calcium lactate did not show
signicant differences, and therefore only the results obtained with
the treatment at 60  Brix were presented here.
This structural preservation due to the addition of calcium to the
osmotic sugar solutions has been previously reported in the literature for other kinds of fruit, such as melon and kiwifruit. Mastrangelo et al. (2000) veried that the osmotic dehydration process
caused cell deformation, rupture of cell walls and membranes and
cell turgidity loss in melon tissue. However, when the treatment
was performed in the presence of calcium ions, the fruit tissue
exhibited less deformed cell walls with good electron density,
indicating less structural damage. For kiwifruit, the osmotic process
caused extensive plasmolysis of the cell membranes, degradation of
the cell walls and middle lamella and decreasing cell-to-cell contact, but the addition of calcium lactate to the osmotic solution
enhanced cell cohesion and increased cell wall integrity (Muntada
et al., 1998).
Comparing the two different sugars used, it could be observed
that for treatments at 40  Brix using both the sucrose and maltose
solutions, the tissue of the osmo-dehydrated guavas presented
similar structural damage (Fig. 2a and d). However, for treatments
at 60  Brix (Fig. 2b and e), a more structured cell arrangement could
be observed for guavas osmotically dehydrated using maltose solutions, despite suffering great structural alterations in the absence
of calcium salts. Ferrando and Spiess (2001) also observed

381

a protective effect of maltose syrups on the cell structure of osmotically dehydrated onion tissue, attributing the higher integrity
of the plasma membrane and tolerance to stretching to the maltose
solutions as compared to sucrose solutions.
Fig. 3 shows a cross-sectional view of the guava tissue, from the
surface exposed to the osmotic solution to the other side, where the
peel was removed. It can be noted that the damaging effect of
the osmotic process on the guava microscopic features was veried
not only at the guava surface, as observed by other authors, but
throughout the entire fruit tissue. Moreno et al. (2000) and Salvatori, Andres, Albors, Chiralt, and Fito (1998) veried that the
internal cells of strawberries and apples remained practically unaltered throughout the osmotic process whereas in the more
external zone, where the tissue was exposed to the osmotic solution, changes in cell structure were evident, showing the absence of
cell turgor and the cell shrinkage associated with water loss.
At the sample surface (a), where the tissue was in contact with
the osmotic solution, more intense damage could be observed
in the guava tissue, but the structural collapse was also observed
at the center (b) and other side (c) of the sample, in the internal
cells. The structural preservation by calcium lactate was also veried throughout the entire guava tissue.
3.2. Texture properties
The osmotic treatment with sucrose or maltose solutions
resulted in an increase in failure stress or hardness of the guavas,
and the use of higher sugar solution concentrations (60  Brix)
intensied this behavior (Fig. 4). Similar effects were observed for
both sugars studied; but only for the osmotic solutions at 40  Brix

Fig. 3. Micrographs of parenchyma tissue of guavas subjected to different treatments. (1) Fresh, (2) osmotically dehydrated in a 60  Brix sucrose solution and (3) osmotically
dehydrated in a 60  Brix sucrose solution with the addition of calcium lactate. (a) At the sample surface, (b) at the center of the sample (about 2.5 mm from the surface) and (c) at
the other side of the sample. Scale bar: 140 mm.

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L.M. Pereira et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

Fig. 4. Normalized stress at failure of the guavas osmotically dehydrated in sucrose

and maltose solutions with ( ) and without (,) the addition of calcium lactate. SUC40
and SUC60: osmotically dehydrated in 40 and 60  Brix sucrose solutions, MAL40 and
MAL60: osmotically dehydrated in 40 and 60  Brix maltose solutions. Mean separation
by Tukey (n 5). Different letters indicate statistically signicant differences at
P < 0.05. Stress at failure values were normalized as the ratio between the values for
the treated and untreated (fresh) fruits.

without the addition of calcium salts, higher stress at failure values

were observed for the maltose treated guavas.
The linkage of the calcium ions with the pectin of the cell wall
and middle lamella, responsible for promoting the structural
preservation of the osmotically dehydrated guavas, as observed in
the optical micrographs (Figs. 2 and 3), also affected the texture
properties of the guavas. A rming effect provided by the calcium
salts was observed. The guavas osmotically dehydrated in sucrose
and maltose solutions with the addition of calcium lactate showed
higher stress at failure values than the fruits treated without the
calcium salt.
A more intense effect of the calcium lactate on fruit hardness
was veried for guavas treated with 40  Brix sugar solutions,
causing a stress at failure increase of up to 4 times. Nevertheless,
this effect on the guava texture was not veried by the microscopic
features of the fruits.

3.3. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)

Fig. 6. DSC thermograms of cell wall samples of guavas osmotically dehydrated in

sucrose solutions. SUC40 and SUC40 CaLAC: osmotically dehydrated in 40  Brix sucrose solutions without and with the addition of calcium lactate, SUC60 and
SUC60 CaLAC: osmotically dehydrated in 60  Brix sucrose solutions without and with
the addition of calcium lactate.

cell walls presented values similar to those of commercial pectin,

showing onset (To) and peak (Tp) melting temperatures around 157
and 181  C, respectively (Fig. 5). For guavas osmotically dehydrated
in 40 and 60  Brix sucrose and maltose solutions, very similar
values for the pectin melting temperatures were also veried,
To 158  C and Tp 179  C for guavas treated with 40  Brix
sucrose, To 158  C and Tp 181  C for guavas treated with
60  Brix sucrose, To 158  C and Tp 181  C for guavas treated
with 40  Brix maltose and To 160  C and Tp 178  C for guavas
treated with 60  Brix maltose, showing that the use of both sugars
did not change the pectic matrix structure of the guava tissue,
probably due to the low amount of high methoxyl pectin in the
guava cell wall, as a result of pectin methylesterase activity (Figs. 6
and 7).
A pectin melting peak shift was observed for the sucrose treated
guavas when the fruits were osmotically dehydrated with the
addition of calcium lactate (Fig. 6), showing values of To 161  C
and Tp 182  C for guavas treated at 40  Brix and To 163  C and
Tp 187  C for fruits treated at 60  Brix, suggesting the linkage of

An endothermic peak corresponding to the melting of pectin

was observed in the DSC scans of the guava cell walls. Fresh guava

Fig. 5. DSC thermograms of commercial pectin and fresh guava cell wall samples.

Fig. 7. DSC thermograms of cell wall samples of guavas osmotically dehydrated in

maltose solutions. MAL40 and MAL40 CaLAC: osmotically dehydrated in 40  Brix
maltose solutions without and with the addition of calcium lactate, MAL60 and
MAL60 CaLAC: osmotically dehydrated in 60  Brix maltose solutions without and
with the addition of calcium lactate.

L.M. Pereira et al. / LWT - Food Science and Technology 42 (2009) 378384

calcium ions with the pectic matrix of the plant tissues, as observed
in the optical micrographs and texture measurements. This effect of
calcium salts was also veried in the thermal transitions of soybean
tissue, where an increase in the glass transition temperature was
noticed, reecting the linkage of calcium ions with pectin molecules present in the cell wall (Lin et al., 1991).
However, for fruits osmotically dehydrated with maltose solutions, the addition of calcium lactate did not change the melting
behavior of the guava pectin (Fig. 7). According to Fu and Rao
(1999), Grosso, Bobbio, and Airoldi (2000) and Grosso and Rao
(1998), some sugars were able to compete with the pectin for the
calcium ions in the formation of low methoxyl pectin gels, affecting
the rigidity. In this study, it can be inferred that the formation of
a complex between the maltose molecules and the calcium ions,
resulted in a decrease in the amount of Ca2 available for linkage
with the pectin, and thus the melting peak of the pectin did not
change. However, the ions available for complexation with the
pectin were able to guarantee the structural preservation of the
tissue and the rming effect on the guava texture properties.
A synergistic effect between the sucrose and calcium was also
veried, with the increase of sugar concentration, higher pectin
melting temperatures were observed for the samples treated with
calcium lactate (Fig. 6). This synergism between sucrose and calcium was also noticed by Fu and Rao (1999), Grosso and Rao (1998)
and Norziah, Kong, Abd Karim, and Seow (2001), in the formation of
low methoxyl pectin gels.
3.4. Calcium content of fruits
The calcium content of the fresh guavas was 0.815  0.007 g kg1
dry matter (mean value  standard deviation) and the osmotic
dehydration processes using sucrose and maltose solutions retained
around 70% and 55% of the calcium present in the raw material,
respectively. However, the use of calcium lactate in the osmotic
treatment resulted in a signicant increase in the calcium content of
the osmo-dehydrated guavas (Fig. 8), compensating the losses
caused by the osmotic process, as also observed by Lewicki, Vu Le,
and Pomaranska-Lazuka (2002).
The use of osmotic solutions at lower sugar concentrations
provided a greater calcium uptake when compared with more
concentrated solutions. The addition of calcium to the 40  Brix
sucrose and maltose solutions resulted in an 810-fold increase in
fruit calcium content with respect to the osmotically dehydrated
guavas without the addition of calcium lactate, while for the
60  Brix solutions, the addition of calcium resulted in a calcium

Fig. 8. Calcium content of guavas osmotically dehydrated in sucrose and maltose solutions with ( ) and without (,) the addition of calcium lactate. SUC40 and SUC60:
osmotically dehydrated in 40 and 60  Brix sucrose solutions, MAL40 and MAL60: osmotically dehydrated in 40 and 60  Brix maltose solutions. Mean separation by Tukey
(n 3). Different letters indicate statistically signicant differences at P < 0.05.

383

content increase of about 5 times. This behavior could have been

responsible for the great increase in the stress at failure values
observed in these samples, but did not result in better structural
characteristics.
At 60  Brix, the probable formation of a sugar barrier layer at the
fruit surface due to solute accumulation could have hindered calcium uptake throughout the process. Moreover, the lower sugar
content of the 40  Brix solutions seemed to favor the entrance of
other solutes into the fruit tissue.
Although there was a big Ca2 ion uptake, the guavas osmotically dehydrated with 40  Brix sugar solutions with the addition of
calcium lactate did not show signicant structural differences in
relation to the fruits treated at 60  Brix. Moreover, the higher
concentration of these ions showed no effect on the pectin melting
peak, suggesting that only part of the ions cross-linked with the
guava tissue pectic matrix, or that the higher amount of sugar
present in the fruits treated at 60  Brix supplied the same effect as
the calcium in the fruits osmo-dehydrated at 40  Brix.
4. Conclusions
Severe structural damage was observed in guavas osmotically
dehydrated with sucrose and maltose solutions, and this effect was
intensied by higher sugar concentrations and by the use of sucrose
as the osmotic agent. This damaging effect of the osmotic process
on guava structure was noticed not only at the guava surface, but
also throughout the entire fruit tissue.
However, the addition of calcium lactate to the 40 and 60  Brix
osmotic sugar solutions promoted structural maintenance of the
guava tissue and resulted in an increase in guava hardness,
indicating the formation of linkages between the Ca2 ions and the
pectin present in the cell wall and middle lamella of the guava tissue.
This effect of the calcium salt was conrmed by the DSC experiments. A melting peak displacement was observed when the fruits
were osmotically dehydrated with the addition of calcium lactate.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank FAPESP, CNPq and CAPES/GRICES for their
nancial support. LMP was a recipient of a FAPESP fellowship.
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