BIOCHEMICAL STUDIES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF BITTERNESS IN STORED CARROTS

Further investigation on the finding by Sondheimer (1957) that isocoumarin was responsible for the bitter taste in carrots that had been stored before processing, and by later workers that ethylene induced isocoumarin formation, has lead to the following data:

1. Ethylene caused an increase of the total phenol content of carrots,

2. The increase was due

   1. partly to the increased concentration of the preexisting phenols, mainly isochlorogenic acid,

   2. partly to a ‘de novo’ synthesis of at least four compounds, one of which was identified as the isocoumarin described by Sondheimer, and another as a chromone, a new finding as chromones had not been described in carrot tissues before.

There seems to be two groups of compounds responsible for the bitterness of carrots, the chlorogenic-isochlorogenic group which causes the superficial bitterness, and the isocoumarin-chromone group which is evenly destributed in all tissues of the carrot root.

Symposium on Vegetable Storage

C.T. Phan

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1974.38.23