Dehydration of math by different drying methods

Vegetables are highly perishable commodities and, therefore, need to be preserve as long as possible in order to make the commodity available in off seasons. Dehydration is a value addition operation of a produce. The optimization of such an operation leads to an improvement in the quality of the output. Dehydrated vegetables are used basically as a raw material in food products. In the present investigation, dehydration of math (Amaranthus cruentus) was carried out by tray drying and microwave drying. Before going for dehydration test physical properties of math (Amaranthus cruentus) were determined. The temperatures selected for tray drying were 400C, 500C and 600C. The math (Amaranthus cruentus) was also dried in microwave oven for three different durations i.e.10 sec, 1 min and 2 min. The dehydrated math (Amaranthus cruentus) was tested for ascorbic acid content, â-carotene content, rehydration test and organoleptic evaluation.