Abstract
Stewed pumpkin juice(SPJ) has recently become popular as a health drink, and its consumption is growing rapidly. Well ripened pumpkin was heated in a pressure cooker and squeezed to an extract and then packed in retort pouches. The ingredient of ginger, onion, jujube and boxthorn was added to samples of SPJ in order to observe the effect on the composition of SPJ during production and storage at 28oC for 60 days. The level of the main mineral(K) in pumpkin varied when the ingredients were added. The pH of control SPJ showed more changes than the SPJs with ingredients added, and there was almost no change in the samples with boxthorn. During storage, titrable acidity decreased in all samples, and the SPJs with ginger and jujube showed relatively little change compared to the samples of control SPJ and SPJ with onion. As for soluble solid and reducting sugar, the SPJs with jujube and boxthorn showed the highest reading. For carotenoid, the SPJs with jujube, ginger, boxthorn and onion listed according to the amount of carotenoid contained more total carotenoid than the control SPJ. Most of the carotenoid in pumpkin and its extract was found to be carotene by HPLC and Chandler's method. Sensory evaluation of the SPJ samples with ingredients revealed preference for the taste of the SPJs with jujube, ginger and boxthorn in declining order of preference. The taste of SPJs with ingredients added was generally preferent over the control SPJ except the case of SPJ with onion.