title: Mango pulp-agar based model gel: textural characterisation.
abstract: The textural properties of a model gel system have been investigated by employing an experimental design concerning the effect of agar (1-3%), mango pulp (0-50%) and sugar (0-20%). A gel characterization method, based on the principle of penetration-shearing, has been applied to determine the response functions (fracture strain, fracture stress, energy for penetration-shearing and firmness). These textural indices can be fitted well (0.858 ≤ r ≤ 0.953, p ≤ 0.01) to second order polynomials. Agar possesses the maximum effect and an increase in agar content markedly increases these indices while sugar imparts mostly a curvilinear effect; a failure strain as high as 33% has been achieved by increasing the agar content. The individual optimization (maximization), based on canonical analysis, on these indices indicates that agar content to be more than 2.8%. Gels with extensively varying textural properties can be achieved by changing the proportions of these ingredients.
authors.affiliation: Food Engineering Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), Mysore, 570020 India.
authors.forename: Shipra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tiwari
authors.affiliation: Food Engineering Department, Central Food Technological Research Institute (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), Mysore, 570020 India.
authors.forename: Suvendu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
keywords: Fruit gel; Optimization; Penetration-shearing; Rheology