Effects of peeling methods on the quality of ready-to-use carrot slices

The effects of methods used for peeling and physiological age (over-wintering) on the quality and storage life of carrot disks packaged in modified atmosphere were examined. Commercial mechanical abrasion peeling using fine or coarse carborundum plates, was compared with carrots peeled by hand, before slicing into disks. Slices which had been peeled by abrasion had higher respiration rates, greater microbial contamination and growth rates, higher pH values, higher rates of weight loss and shorter microbiological shelf-lives than those which had been hand peeled. These results reflected the higher quality of the manually peeled carrots. Micrographs of the peeled surfaces confirmed that abrasion peeling inflicted greater damage. Carrots lifted in the autumn produced slices with longer shelf-lives than carrots lifted in the spring after over-wintering in the ground for four months.