Abstract

The effect of different drying methods on sugar content and amino acid content, color and non-enzymatic browning of Chilean papaya (Vasconcellea pubescens) slices was investigated. The obtained fruit extracts were tested in cell viability assays on human endothelial ECV-304 cells. Drying techniques included freeze-, vacuum-, solar-, convective- and infrared-drying. Consistently, infrared-dried papaya had a lower sugar content and a higher non-enzymatic browning intensity than papaya dehydrated by the other methods. All dried samples were lighter in color with a lower yellow intensity compared to fresh papaya. The amino acid lysine was the most abundant in the infrared-dried sample. On the other side, the methods that employed vacuum, increased their cellular viability. Based on these results, operational parameters during drying processes should be considered to preserve, on one hand, product quality attributes, while, on the other hand, increasing cell viability.