Physico-chemical and cooking qualities of fresh and stored pumpkins

The physical, chemical, and cooking qualities of pumpkin are important qualitative variables to consumers and food processors. Pumpkin is typically stored in ambient conditions in the supply chain. The objectives of this study were to monitor the changes in freshly harvested and ambient stored pumpkin quality and to determine the key quality parameters for classifying fresh and stored fruit. Physical properties such as fruit weight, firmness, and dimension as well as chemical properties declined after storage, especially for starch content (from 8.3 to 5.8% w/w), starch granule size (from 7.2 × 10−5 to 6.9 × 10−5 μm2), and pectin content (from 17.0 to 5.0 g kg−1 fresh weight). Amounts of soluble solids, lipids, and β-carotene in pumpkin flesh, on the other hand, escalated with storage time. Nonetheless, great diminutions were observed in cooking quality in terms of hardness (from 32.6 to 9.9 N), gumminess (from 3.4 to 1.4 N), and chewiness (from 1.5 to 0.4 J) in texture profiles of cooked pumpkin as well as peak viscosity (from 618.1 to 290.3 cP), final viscosity (from 979.5 to 434.1 cP), and setback (from 387.9 to 161.0 cP) values of the pasting properties of pumpkin starch. Principal component analysis (PCA) performed with texture profile data revealed the variations among fresh and stored pumpkin, and this was considered the effective quality trait for classifying both pumpkin types.