Enhanced Sweetness of Carrot by Steaming

Abstract

It is important to make vegetables enjoyable to eat in order to increase their consumption. Our preliminary experiment showed the possibility that steaming carrot made it sweeter. Organoleptic evaluations and physicochemical experiments were conducted on carrot slices subjected to various steaming times. Longer steaming time increased the sensory softness, juiciness and sweetness. It was not possible to explain the sweetness caused by steaming as being dependent on the sugar content of the carrot slices, because the sugar content remained unchanged by the steaming treatment. The amount of extract exuded from the steamed slices when pressing at a constant low pressure for 30 s was compared. The amount of extract increased with increasing steaming time. Moreover the extract contained about 10% sugars. We consider that the amount of the extract that was easily exuded was related to the evaluated sweetness and juiciness.