Nutritive Value and Improving Palatability of Bitter Melon (Momordica charantia L.)

Bitter melon (Carvilla), is a popular traditional medicinal vegetable in tropical and subtropical countries. A larger population of people does not like the bitterness of this fruit and processing into beverages is believed to increase its palatability and acceptability. The aim of this work was to determine the chemical composition of the carvilla fruits and as a trail to remove the bitter taste to use it as a food component in the preparation of carvilla drink with tea as well as spearmint. The obtained results indicated that the fresh and dry (with bitterness T1 and without bitterness T2) carvilla fruits had high levels of ash and protein contents (8.54, 8.32 and 7.92% and 13.21, 13.42 and 13.14%, respectively). The anti-oxidant activity of fresh and dry carvilla fruits (T1) were higher than carvilla fruits (T2). Carvilla is also a good source of mineral elements, especially potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc. Sugars such as maltose, sucrose, arbinose, fructose, stachyose, glucuronic and galcturonic represented in high ratios of fresh carvilla while decreased after soaking and drying. e-vanillic, pyrogalol and benzoic acid were the major phenolic compounds, whereas, rosemarynic, quercetrine, spiridine and acacetin were the predominant of flavonoid compounds, which decreased after soaking and drying. Vitamins B3, B6, B12 and K were the predominant vitamins found in carvilla fruits. The IC50 of fresh and dried bitter melon extract showed high active as anti-cancer for lung cell while dried bitter melon free from bitterness did not show any effect. The results of sensory properties showed that the addition of dry and after removal of bitterness carvilla powder in the mentioned ratios (1:3) gave the highest scores, improving the taste grades of the drinks and were preferred by the consumers.