Utilization of Vegetable Hydrocolloid Compounds as Edible Coating Material to Extend the Shelf Life of Bananas Muli(Musa acuminata Linn.)

The preserve quality, freshness and extending shelf life of fruit could be done by storing the fruits in the refrigerated room, pressurized room or by modifying the atmosphere of the room. However, this type of storage cost is quite expensive, therefore needed another solution that is fruit coating using edible coating solution made from vegetable hydrocolloids. The aims of this study were to determine the best materials type among the three types of vegetable hydrocoloid materials, namely extract Aloe vera leaves, extract Ceiba pentandra leaves and extract Abelmoschus manihot leaves that are able to preserve the shelf life of M.acuminata fruit. This research use was a complete randomized design with four treatments, namely; without edible coating, edible coating of extract Aloe vera
leaves, edible coating of extract Ceiba pentandra leaves, and edible coating of extract Abelmoschus manihot leaves, with three replications. The result showed that the lowest shrinkage percentage was found in edible coating of extract Aloe vera leaves with an average value of 3.43% and the highest was found in treatment without edible coating of 4.37%. At the end of observation the highest sugar content was obtained in edible coating of extract Aloe vera leaves of 20 o Brix while the lowest was in treatment without edible coating that was 16o Brix. In organoleptic test, panelists prefered edible coating of extract Aloe vera leaves with an value range of 4 or 5 equivalented with neutral or likes, and did not like of edible coating of wxtract Abelmoschus manihot leaves with an value range of 3 or 4 equivalented with slightly dislike or neutral. Based on the conducted observational, the edible coating of extract Aloe vera leaves was able to preserve the shelf life of
M.acuminata fruit up to five days after harvesting