22 Jgiass, Vol.1, No. 1, 2013, 1(1): 22-27. ISSN (Online) http://www.jgiass.com EFFECT OF VARIOUS HYDROCOLLOIDS ON CLOUD STABILITY AND NUTRITION OF CARROT JUICE Azam Shakeel, Hafiz Khuram Wasim Aslam, Muhammad Shoaib, Hafiz Arbab Sikandar and Rabia Ramzan National Institute of Food Science and Technology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad * Corresponding author’s e-mail: azam1087@gmail.com Fruits as well as Vegetables are very dense source of bioactive components, and necessary for healthy diet plan. Currently, fruit and Vegetable (F & V) juices are gaining much fame because of very high demand of non alcoholic beverages, uses as an alternative to the caffeine containing drinks such as coffee, black and green tea and carbonated soft drinks etc. Pakistani markets like other world also indicated a very high desire of F & V juices because of their health promoting and energy rich characters. F & V are very important portions of healthy drinks whiche provide enough concentrations of essential nutrients. Carrots are the major vegetables that are loaded with biologically active carotenoids contents. It is evident from the researches that the use of carrot juice can give help to prevent the risk of some diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, muscular collapse and diabetes. Recently, the production of Carrot juice has an increasing task of the juice production areas in whole world because of their very poor energy value and main source of vitamins and mineral contents. The cloudy carrot juice is desired as a quality attribute and for the cloudy carrot juice and to get required quality characteristics, hydrocolloids are widely used in F & V juices, drinks and proteinacious juices to boost cloud stability as well as color because of their suspension and thickening abilities. In this review, the health benefits of carrot juice and the stabilizing effects of different hydrocolloids and their future prospective are discussed. Keywords: Carrot, Carrot Juice, Hydrocolloids, Cloud Stability, Health benefits Carrot Production and its Importance: The Carrot (Daucus carota) belongs to family Apiaceae and produce widely in whole world for its eatable root. It is believed to have originated in Central Asia then spread to Asia, Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean region (Kalra et al., 1987 and Mazza, 1989). Although it has been widely cultivated for many centuries, the use of carrot as a food dates only from the early twentieth century. In Pakistan carrot ranks third among winter vegetables with an area of 13,900 hectare and total production of 242,300 tonnes of roots in addition the leaves are important as animal feed. The national average yield for carrot is only 17.5 tonnes per hectare which is quite low as compared to other advanced countries, such as Belgium (47.64 tonnes/hectare), Denmark (44.29 tonnes/hectare), and the United Kingdom (44.28 tonnes/hectare). However, in India and China the average yield is 30 and 38.54 tonnes per hectare, respectively. Pakistan is an impoverished and underdeveloped country where per capita vegetable consumption is 35 kg/person/year (Samie et al., 2010) compared to 155 kg/person/ year in Korea. The minimum recommended vegetable intake to provide sufficient amounts of vitamins C and A is 73 kg/capita/ year (Ali and Abedullah, 2002) while at least 146 kg/year (5 portions per day) is recommended for optimum health. Prior to that time it was used for medicinal purposes. Carrots are sold as whole or as half cut form carrots and are consumed after using in canned form and in canned foods and juices and in the form of freezed products. Over the world, healthy eating strategy has forced the usual people to eat highly fresh fruits and vegetables. Among all these, carrots are being greatly used due to their healthy flavor and great health benefits related to vitamins, mineral contents, and fiber. These also contain; α-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A. Moreover, carrots are rich in dietary fiber, antioxidants and minerals, and fall in alkaline food. Carrots and carrot products are high in β-carotene, vitamin B1 and C with good amount of dietary fiber. Of all the vegetables. These compounds have long been recognized for their role in vision but more recently carotenes have been claimed to provide protection against a range of serious condition including cancer and heart disease (Mayne et al., 1992; Murakoshi et al., 1992; Abbey et al., 1995). A root vegetable, carrot (Daucus carota) is produced globally because of its effective medical importance (Yoon et al., 2005) and as efficient way of getting carotene contents as well as its valuable quantities of contents vitamin and mineral contents (Walde et al., 1992; Demir et al., 2004). Carrot Juice and its nutritional value: Fresh juice of carrots contains 84% water and 7% carbohydrate, 0.74% and 1% protein and fat dietary fiber 7%. Furthermore, the carrot juice is popular because of its good healthy uses and it is medicinal in nature; for example, it is good for urogenital diseases. Bao and Chang (1995) communicated that carrot pulps that have 4-5% protein, 8-9% reducing sugar and 5-6% mineral. Carrots are the major vegetables that are loaded with biologically active carotenoids contents. Recently, the