PHYTOCHEMICAL AND BACTERIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF HOMEMADE AND INDUSTRIALLY PREPARED NATURAL FRUIT JUICE

ABSTRACT

Fruit juice is an important source of bioactive compounds as it consumption confers several health benefits in human diet. There is a high demand for natural fruit juice of which homemade fruit juice is more apppreciated and known to contain more phytochemicals than industrially produced fruit juice and this has to the production of natural fruit juice by industries. Hence, this study was conducted to compare the phytochemical and bacteriological quality of homemade and industrial processed fruit juice so as to confirm the natural state of industrially processed fruit juice. Five batches of an industrial processed natural apple juice as well as five batches of healthy were obtained from super-markets and open market respectively in Benin City and transported to the laboratory for analysis. The homemade juice was extracted asceptically from the healthy apples after which, standard plate technique was used to enumerate bacterial colony present. Phytochemical properties, pH and Titratable acidity was also determined for both homemade and industrial processed fruit juice. Findings in this study showed that glycosides, saponins, phenolics, eugenols, steroids, terpenoids, alkaloids and flavonoids were present in all juice that is, both industrially processed fruit juice and homemade fruit juice. Tannins was present in all factory packaged fruit juice and absent in all laboratory fruit juice. The total heterotrophic bacteria count of industrially processed fruit juice was 1.00±0.884cfu/ml while homemade fruit juice was 2.67±0.825cfu/ml. Statistically there was no significant difference between industrially processed fruit juice and homemade fruit juice as the p-value (0.374) was greater than 0.05. Micrococcus sp., Bacillus sp. and Enterococcus sp. were bacteria contaminants of the fruit juice with an occurrence of 25, 50 and 25% respectively. The pH value of the fruit juice ranged from 3.55 to 3.82 and 3.34 to 3.87 for industrial and homemade fruit juice respectively. The titratable acidity of the fruit juice ranged from 0.223 to 0.398% and 0.212 to 0.386% for industrial and homemade fruit juice respectively. This study has shown that the industrially processed fruit juice is as good as homemade fruit juice phytochemically and microbiologically. However, there should continuous monitoring by food agencies so as to maintain the status quo.