STUDIES ON THE NUTRITIONAL AND QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF CUCUMIS SATIVUS VARIETIES Keerthika.T1, Devaki.C.S2, Florence Suma2, Asna Urooj2 1Vikram Hospital, MYSORE, 2Department of Studies in Food Science and Nutrition, University of Mysore, MYSORE. keerthijeeva91@gmail.com RESULTS Abstract Table 5: Percentage loss of water of Pranic control and Pranic varieties of Cucumber Table 2: Moisture and Vitamin ‘C’ content of different varieties of Cucumber The present study was carried out to evaluate the nutritional, functional and quality parameters of different varieties of locally available cucumbers and their shelf stability. Different varieties of fresh cucumbers, such as Holenarasipur, Dotted, Zucchini, Regular, English, Organic Zucchini, Organic Regular, Control Regular and Pranic healed cucumbers were studied for nutritional parameters: Moisture composition, vitamin C; functional parameters: total phenols, antioxidant activity, and quality parameters: pH, brix and titrable acidity. All the 9 varieties were evaluated for the above mentioned parameters in different parts of cucumber viz, whole vegetable, peel and pulp. When compared with the results it was found that zuccinni variety had highest amount of nutritional and functional components. Temperature Days Refrigerated Storage (+4°C) Room Temperature (18 to 33°C) Control Pranic 2 3.80b 1.60b 6.0a 4.48a 4 6.25a 4.23a 9.80a 8.07a 6 9.78a 8.47a 14.40a 11.65a 8 13.58a 12.42a 17.20a 13.90a 10 16.30a 14.68a 20.80a 17.48a 12 18.47a 16.38a 23.40a 19.50a 14 19.40a 17.40a 24.80a 20.85a 16 20.70a 18.60a 29.60a 22.42a 18 21.30a 32.0a 23.99a Sl.no Variety Moisture (%) Vitamin C By oven drying By analyser (mg/100gm) 1. Holenarasipur i. Whole 96.23 96.1 ii. Peel 93.58 93.19 iii. Pulp 96.38 95.81 2.607 2. English Whole 95.5 94.98 95.68 95.26 95.86 95.49 2.86 3. Zucchini 93.86 93.6 95.28 92.86 92.5 18.249 4. Dotted i.Whole 95.59 95.4 93.8 93.2 95.32 3.736 5. Regular 96.54 95.98 94.99 94.54 96.47 95.67 6. Control 96.22 96.15 96.3 96.5 4.686 7. Pranic Healed 96.44 96.56 95.47 95.6 96.86 96.9 6.284 8. Organic Regular 96.2 95.94 94.52 94.48 96.12 9. Organic Zucchini 93.7 95.7 95.24 92.56 92.45 20.24 Introduction Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family, is a major vegetable crop worldwide. Although its calorie and nutritional value is very low, it is a primary source of vitamins and minerals in the human diet In addition to its delicious taste and fairly good caloric value, it has high medicinal value for human beings. The cucumber fruit products are used not only for fresh eating and culinary cooking, but also for salad and pickling. Though there are many varieties of cucumbers, evaluation of different varieties for their nutritional, functional, and quality parameters and, shelf stability is lacking. # Values with superscripts are significant at the level a: p>0.0001, b: p>0.001, c: p>0.01, d: p>0.05 Table 6: Physical characteristics of varieties of Cucumber Characteristics Variety Condition Days of storage 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Shrivel Control Refrigerated 5 3 1 Room Pranic Colour Materials and Methods Good quality raw materials, cucumber (Cucumis sativus) – varieties like Holenarasipur, Dotted, Zucchini, Regular, English, Organic Zucchini, Organic Regular were procured from local market, Control Regular and Pranic healed cucumbers were procured from World Pranic Healing Foundation, Mysore. All the chemicals, standards, organic solvents and acids used were of analytical grade. Storage Stability studies of Raw Cucumber: Different varieties of cucumbers were stored in two different temperatures, Room temperature: 18 to 33°C (RT) and Refrigerated temperature: 4°C and evaluated for physiological loss in water and physical parameters like shrivel, colour, firmness and decay. Along with the storage stability of the raw cucumbers, the different varieties were analysed for physical, nutritional, functional and quality parameters. Table 3: Functional parameters of different varieties of Cucumber Sl.No Variety Antioxidant activity %* Total Polyphenols mg GAE (100g)** 1 Holenarasipur 21.37 58 2 English 30.4 65 3 Zucchini 32.68 80 4 Dotted 62 5 Regular 22.28 60 6 Control 20.57 68 7 Pranic Healed 69 8 Organic Regular 9 Organic Zucchini 32.57 CONCLUSION The present study brought out the results of nutritional parameters: moisture, vitamin C; functional- total phenols and antioxidants and quality parameters- pH, brix and acidity of different varieties of cucumbers. Highest moisture content was seen in English, Zucchini and pranic healed cucumbers and the lowest moisture content was found in holenarasipur and dotted variety. Zucchini had the highest vitamin C, antioxidant activity, total phenolics and °Brix when the pranic treated and control samples were studied for their storage stability, it was observed that pranic treated samples showed better stability at room temperature and refrigerated storage. * DPPH Free radical scavenging activity for 1g of sample extract. **GAE- Total phenols expressed as mg/100g Gallic Acid Equivalent Characteristics Variety Condition Days of storage 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Decay Control Refrigerated 5 1 Room Pranic Table 4: Quality parameters of different varieties of Cucumber Variety pH Concentration Brix° Titrable acidity (% lactic acid) Holenarasipur 5.56 3.0 0.13 English 5.43 0.26 Zucchini 6.40 5.0 0.21 Dotted 5.50 3.8 0.14 Regular 0.15 Control 5.42 Pranic Healed 5.38 Organic Regular 5.58 Organic Zucchini 6.45 5.2 0.22 Table 1: Following methods were standardized for evaluating the Cucumber samples Analysis Evaluation Proximate Composition-Moisture Oven drying method , Moisture analyzer Total phenols Spectrophotometric method Vitamin C Titration method pH pH meter Acidity Antioxidants DPPH Method TSS Refractometer ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors sincerely thank Mr. Srikanth Jois (Head of Reasearch), World Pranic Healing Research Foundation, Mysore for their financial support and encouragement. a c d e f g b Different varieties of cucumber used for the study; a:Zucchini, b:Dotted,c: English, d: Regular, e: Holenarasipur, f: Pranic control, g: Pranic healed