Influence of drying methods on the characteristics of a vegetable paste formulated by linear programming maximizing antioxidant activity

- A vegetable paste was formulated through linear programming by maximizing the antioxidant activity.
- The vegetables selected among the raw materials showed antioxidant activity around of 81%.
- The dried product in spouted bed showed higher quality than the product in tray drying.
- The paste formulated by linear programming dried in spouted bed provided a good quality product.

The linear programming is a successful method that can be applied in foods formulation. A vegetable paste was formulated by this method in order to maximize the antioxidant activity. The optimized paste was dried in spouted bed (80, 90 and 100 °C) and it was compared to the dried product in conventional tray (65 °C). The linear programming was suitable to quantify the selected the raw materials (six vegetables and soybean oil), resulting in a paste with high total antioxidant activity (81.3% inhibition DPPH). The best results were found in spouted bed drying at 100 °C, resulting in a product like a homogeneous powder with smooth surface particles, that presented the total phenolic compounds of 4.9 mgGAE g−1dry matter, the total antioxidant activity of 81.6% inhibition DPPH and the lowest color difference. The dried product in spouted bed showed superior results to the product of tray dryer in relation to its characteristics and bioactive compounds.