FOOD SCIENCE

LAB REPORT : DEHYDRATION OF FRUIT TO DETERMINE MOISTURE CONTENT

DATE : 12-13 November 2018
Pitchapa Jitsajjapong (Lookpeach) 1001

You all know that many foods consist of water depending on its kind of food. For fruits and
vegetables, they have high water content. Next below are meats and cooked grains, they
both have medium water content. Lastly, the lowest content of water are cereals, crackers,
and cookies. But you might not agree with this? Well, there are many methods to test the
moisture content of water such as bulk water, capillary water, and bound water.

In this experiment, we will be testing the moisture content of fruits by dehydration. For our
group, we choose to test the dragon fruit. We will record its appearance and taste before
and after dehydrating, and see the difference.

Data tables
Name of Members Mass before Mass after Moisture content %
dehydration (g) dehydration (g)
1.Lookpeach 13.25 2.76 79.17%
2.Fah 11.62 2.25 80.64%
3.Earl 13.58 2.62 80.71%

Measurement of the fruit samples

Before dehydration
Sample Number Length (cm) Height (cm) Width (cm)
1 2 2.5 2
2 2.2 2.5 2
3 1.8 3.3 2.5

After dehydration
Sample Number Length (cm) Height (cm) Width (cm)
1 1.5 1.4 1.7
2 1.5 1.3 1.4
3 1.4 1.5 2.3

Calculate the moisture content of sample number 1

Mass before dehydration – Mass after dehydration

% moisture = X 100
Mass before dehydration
 = [ (13.75 – 2.76)/ 13.75 ] *100
= (10.99/ 13.75) *100
= 0.79* 100
= 79.17 %

The dragon fruit Cut it into dices

A process of dehydration Doing the experiment

Discussion Section
1.Each group member should comment on the changes they observed from the wet to dry
sample. This would include their observation (size changes, smells, textures, photos with
descriptions)
For the sample before dehydration, it just a normal dragon fruit that you eat as usual. I
cut it into a dice. It smelled nothing. When I touched the dragon fruit, I could tell that its
surface was slippery, but still knobby with the black granules. It tasted sweet-and-sour.
When I chewed it, I could feel moist inside the dragon fruit. Nevertheless, after the dragon
fruit dried, its size changed. It was smaller than before that I could see the black granules
clumped together, and its shape turned into a mushy dice. Its texture was parch and rough.
It smelled nothing like before. Then, I ate it. After I bit it once, its smell appeared. It was
foul-smelling and its taste was like putrid grass. I felt queasy.
 Before dehydration, they looked appetizing. After dehydration, they looked unpalatable.

2.Were the samples completely dry? Why not? Why did some samples dry more efficiently
than others?
The samples did not totally dry, just almost of their pulps. When I chewed it, I could felt a
handful of moist left in the fruit. It was because the dragon fruit has high water content.
When I cut it into a dice, its pulp was thick and dense. After dehydrating, moist of the fruit
did not go totally. It left a bit inside the fruit. The other reasons are the heat was not hot
enough for evaporated all the moist or maybe the time was too short for dehydrating. We
could see that some samples dried more than others because the moist inside each piece of
fruits were not equally. Some had more, some had less.

3.Why might we want to be careful with the types of dried fruit we purchase? Are they all
healthy? You may want to research this.
Sometimes you choose to buy the dried fruits because they can be stored longer than the
fresh one. Nevertheless, If you eat them overabundance, you will be fat because the dried
fruits have higher sugar (fructose) than the fresh fruits, especially mangoes, pineapples,
cranberries, bananas and apples. When the fructose exceeds its limit, the liver will convert
it into cholesterol. That is why it causes heart disease. If you compare the amount of sugar
between the fresh and dried fruit, you will see the big difference between two of these, e.g.,
one cup of fresh cranberries contains only 4 grams of sugar but one cup of dried cranberries
contains a whopping 70 grams. Inasmuch as dried fruit contains plenty of sugar, you should
better eat fresh fruit than the dried one.

Citation : Why is Dried Fruit Bad For You | Well+Good. (2014, June 22). Retrieved

November 26, 2018, from https://www.wellandgood.com/good-food/why-dried-fruit-is-not-a-

healthy-snack/

Conclusion
The dehydration is the process for removed the water content out of the victual, but not
100% just almost of it. As you see the percentage of the moisture content in the table, it
shows that the dragon fruit has high water content approximate 80 percent out of 100.