The attractive colors of many red and yellow fruits and vegetables are
attributable to their carotenoid contents. Therefore, a child lovely food form {extrudate
as snacks} was formulated by partially introduction of ~-carotene rich foodstuffs
{carrot, pumpkin and sweet potatoes}. The tested materials were individually
blanched, in water, 5% citric acid or 1 % sodium metabisulfite, cooled, dried and
milled. The milled products were subjected to extrusion process and these produced
extrudates were put under investigation. It was found that the chemical constituents, except the ether extract, in the
extrudate products was higher in samples blanched in water compared to those
blanched in the other blanching solutions. The same trend was also found in case of
water and oil retention of the sweet potatoes and pumpkin extrudates. On the
contrary, the higher values were noticed in the carrot extrudate samples blanched in
sodium metabisulfite followed by those blanched in citric acid and water. ~-carotene of
the extrudate samples blanched in citric acid or sodium metabisulfite was superior
than the other tested materials including the control extrudate sample (corn). There
was a minor change in color indicator (L, a and b) of all samples during the storage
period at ambient temperature. The sensory evaluation of the extrudate samples
reveals that the blanching treatment enhanced the tested attributes scores to be
higher than the corn extrudate.