Abstract
Vegetables are well-known as a good source of dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and bioactive
compounds. However, their shelf-lives are very short and can easily loose its nutritional
value after harvesting. Dried vegetables powder has gained interest and their properties
greatly influence quality attributes of final products. This research aimed to study functional
properties of three types of dried vegetable powder, i.e. sweet potato (SP), sweet corn (SC),
and pumpkin (PK), which was used as the main ingredient for developing pudding for
the elderly and the quality of the developed pudding was also measured. The functional
properties of the dried vegetable were particle size and size distribution, water solubility
(WS), water holding capacity (WHC), emulsion capacity (EC), emulsion stability (ES), and
oil binding capacity (OBC). The size distributions of these three types of vegetable powder
were in range between 10 to 100 µm. The PK powder had the highest WHC, EC and ES values
followed by the SC and SP powder, respectively. In contrast, the PK powder had the lowest
OBC value. The highest WHC, EC and ES values of the samples could be attributed to the
highest dietary fiber content in the PK powder, thereby improving viscosity and texture, and
also preventing syneresis of the final products. The highest amount of the vegetable powder
which could be added separately into control formula of the pudding was at 8% (w/w). All
developed puddings were accepted by thirty completely edentulous elderly panelists with
overall acceptability score between like slightly to like moderately. These products can be
used as a prototype of supplementary meal for elderly which have health benefits beyond
basic nutrition, including, source of dietary fiber, antioxidants, and β-carotene.
