Effect of Sodium Substitution on Sensory and Quality Parameters in Mango Pickle

Aims: An intensive study was conducted so as to find out the best salt combinations when NaCl was partially replaced with KCl and CaCl2 while curing mango pieces. Mango pickle contains 15-20% salt, the consumption of which cause hypertension and high blood pressure. This is due to excess sodium ion (Na+) consumption.

Study Design: D-Optimal Quadratic Mixture Design using Response Surface Methodology was adopted with 3 mixture components to get 16 mixture combinations of salts.

Methodology: 16 runs were formulated depicting diverse salt mixtures and pickle samples were cured using these 16 different brine formulations. After pickling, the final sample were analyzed for water drawing capacity (g/100g salt), hardness of cured sample (N), water activity (aw), sodium and potassium concentration in pickle (in ppm) and organoleptic properties based on hedonic scale.

Results: The result shows that water drawing capacity was maximum (102.692) in the 6th run and minimum (58.364) in 2nd run. Hardness of cured sample (in N) was maximum (8.470) in11th run and minimum (6.998) in 9th run. Water activity was maximum in 9th run (0.974) and minimum (0.968) in the 2nd run. Na concentration in pickle (ppm) was highest in the 14th run (408.715) and lowest in 2nd run (68.715). K concentration in final pickle (ppm) was maximum in 6th run (472.222) and minimum in 9th run (28.744). Organoleptic properties based on hedonic scale was evaluated, it was found that run number 14 and 12 have maximum score of 7.429 and 7.393 respectively whereas Run-1 and Run-2 showed minimum score of 6.552 and 6.616 respectively.

Conclusion: Numerical optimization revealed that formulation with 0.5 fractions NaCl and 0.5 fractions KCl is having the maximum desirability of 0.658. Another formulation with NaCl 57.1% and KCl with 42.9% is having a desirability of 0.64. This formulation can also be adopted for the purpose of commercialization.