Ascorbic acid enrichment of whole potato tuber by vacuum-impregnation

The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of vacuum-impregnation (VI) for enriching the ascorbic acid content of whole potatoes. Whole potatoes were immersed in a 10% ascorbic acid (AA) solution. A vacuum pressure of 70 cm Hg was applied for 0–60 min, following atmospheric pressure restoration for 3 h, while samples remained in the VI solution. AA concentrations of potatoes were measured using HPLC. The effects of cooking and storage time in subsets of the fortified samples were also evaluated. Results indicated that the AA concentration of whole potatoes increased with vacuum time (max 150 mg/100 g fr. wt.). In addition, a steam-cooking study showed that 100 g of the 25 min steam-cooked VI potatoes could provide adults with 90–100% of the recommended daily allowance of AA (100 mg). The storage study showed that VI whole potatoes had a relatively high AA concentration (50 mg/100 g fr. wt.), even at 14 days of storage at 4 °C. This study indicated that VI treatment of whole potatoes was useful for enriching the AA content.