Sensory Profiling of Pulpy Fruits Based Ready to Reconstitute Little Millet Smoothies

Convenience foods are the now a big trend in the food business. The Indian ready to eat (RTE), ready to cook (RTC) and ready to serve (RTS) food segments have emerged from its early days of being a fringe alternative to home cooked meals or eating out. The underutilised little millet like other nutricereals is nutritionally superior to regularly consumed cereals. Malting of little millet enhances the digestibility, reduces the antinutritional components and can provide appropriate food-based strategy to derive nutrients maximally. Hence, a ready to reconstitute (RTR) smoothie mix was developed with a malted little millet that promotes the incorporation of nourishing drinks in daily diet. The suitability of mix to blend with fruit pulps viz. banana, papaya and pineapple in 1:1 and 1:2 ratio was assessed for its sensory parameters. The results revealed that the best scores for sensory attributes were for 1:1 blend except for appearance. Further, the overall acceptability scores of banana, papaya and pineapple smoothies on a hedonic scale of 9.0 were 8.37±0.09, 8.17±0.07 and 8.27±0.08 respectively indicating that the evaluated pulpy fruits were suitable for preparation of RTR smoothies.