Fecha de publicación: 01/01/2025 Fuente: Food Bioactives Abstract
Oranges (Citrus sinensis L.) are the most popular citrus fruit, and highly consumed worldwide. Their attractive color, high bioactive compounds (ascorbic acid, phenolic compounds, carotenoid compounds, etc.) content, and distinct flavor are the main reasons of its high preference. However, these reasons that cause high consumption of orange juice change during processing. Some additional quality properties such as acidity, hydroxymethylfurfural content, browning index, and viscosity also can be affected by processing conditions. The processing of oranges to produce juice or concentrate contains many steps with different details and processing variables. It is also possible to obtain orange juices with different properties (pulpy, clarified, not from concentrate, etc.) by applying different processing steps. Still, to generalize, the orange juice processing steps are prewashing, sorting, washing, extraction, finishing, separation, pasteurization, concentration/evaporation, cooling, and filling. The sources of changes in orange juice quality in these steps are basically oxygen contact, effect of heat, and chemical reactions associated with/accelerated by them. Some quality parameters of final product can be adjustable by modifying the processing conditions or changing the method with an innovative one. Also, the selected orange variety used for juice production has a significant impact on the quality of final product. The knowledge about the orange juice processing steps, the effects of these steps on quality of product, and recent findings in orange juice processing are presented in this chapter.