Effect of High-Pressure and Thermal Pasteurization on Microbial and Physico-Chemical Properties of Opuntia ficus-indica Juices

Opuntia fruits are recognized for their richness in nutrients and bioactive compounds, being also highly appreciated by consumers as a juice. Nevertheless, without further processing, prickly pear juices have short shelf-life, hampering commercial use. In this work, thermal (TP) high-pressure (HPP) pasteurization were applied to from ficus-indica cultivars ‘Rossa’, ‘Gialla’, ‘Bianca’ understand the impact of those methods on microbial safety, physico-chemical properties, nutritional content samples, over storage at 4 °C. general, 71.1 °C 30 s increased shelf-life 22 days, 500 MPa 10 min 52 days with regard growth well maintenance physical-chemical characteristics. The application these two delayed changes characteristics juices, more pronounced effect titratable acidity, °Brix browning. For same periods time, decreased variation quality parameters around 75%. Similarly, shown polyphenolic concentration antioxidant activity juices. particular, HPP was efficient preventing decrease increase which normally negatively affect flavor