Dehydration and Moisture Content

Group Member Names

1.Anon Durongpisitkul
2.Karis Katekovit
3.Vitavas Kitiyanasap
4.Kanin Jaroensattayatham
5.Sirapat Amornkul

Id Number
5861002
5861050
5861175
5861045
5861144

Section:
1003
1003
1003
1003
1003

Introduction:
From Food Science class, we had already learned about water in our body and food.
Water is very important to our life and without it, we will die. When we consider carefully, we
will realize that there's water in most foods. Different foods have different amounts of water.
However, this shows us how important water is to most of the biotic components on Earth.
There are three types of water. The first one is Bulk water or Free water. Bulk water is
the water in the food that doesnt cling to other water molecules so it can be easily extracted
from foods by squeezing or cutting or pressing. The second one is Trapped water or Capillary
water. This type of water is held in small tubes between certain food components because of
capillary forces. Lastly, Bound water is water that isnt completely surrounded by other water
molecules but is in molecular contact with other physical elements of food. It could also be
chemically bonded to other water molecules. These bonds are much stronger and not easily
broken.
Because of these types of water, many type of food contain water in its structure. For
example, raw broccoli contains water 91% of its weight, cooked rice contains water 68% of its
weight, and whole wheat bread contains water 38% of their weight. The interesting question here
is how do we know the percentage of water or moisture content in food? We can calculate the
moisture content by weighing the food. Next, we have to dehydrate it and weigh it again. Then
we minus the weight before dehydrated by the weight after dehydrated. Finally, we divide the
results by the initial weight and multiply by one hundred.
In this experiment, we studied about how we can dehydrate fruits and about
the moisture content in fruits. We used mango as our sample. We expected that this
experiment will make us understand more about dehydration and moisture content.

Procedure:
Part 1:

1. Obtain your fruit sample

2. Cut your fruit sample into equal pieces, at least one piece for each group member. Each
group member must cut their own piece. Also, cut your Wax paper to fit your piece of
fruit; each group member writes his/her name on the fruit. You may cut a few extra
pieces of fruits at a different thickness to test how size effects dehydration.
3. Draw a picture of your sample. Measure your samples thickness in cm with a ruler.
4. Each group member must find the mass of the sample (in grams) of the fruit. You can
accomplish this by massing the wax paper by itself first then mass the fruit on the paper
(after re-zeroing so that the scale with the wax paper reads zero). Lastly, mass the fruit by
itself and then subtract to double check.
5. Record the masses in the data table.
6. Place each sample of fruit (along with the wax paper) on a rack on the dehydrator. Make
sure all the fruits are spaced evenly apart. Leave it for 24 hours.
Part 2:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Obtain your dehydrated sample from the dehydrator.

Mass your dehydrated sample in grams. Each member must mass their own.
Record the mass in your data table. Dont forget your units.
Draw a picture of your dehydrated sample, and describe its characteristics compared to
the original sample.
5. Calculate the percentage of moisture in the original sample.
6. Find the average moisture content percentage for your group and compare it to the other
groups

Data Table:
Name of group member

Mass of sample before

dehydration

Mass of sample after

dehydration (g.)

Moisture Content (%)

Kim

6.68 g.

1.11 g.

83.38 %

Guy

7.84 g.

1.46 g.

81.38 %

Pat

7.46 g.

1.31 g.

82.44%

Cliff

7.90 g.

1.40 g.

82.27 %

Anon

6.70 g.

1.18 g.

82.39%

Average of moisture content in mango= 82.37%

Materials
Equipments
1.Diced Mango

4. Cutting Board

2.Dehydrator

5.Waxes paper

3.Knife

Group Questions
1. Why did the weight of the sample decrease? Explain.
ANS: When we dehydrate fruit or anything, it means we pull out most or all water molecule in that food.
Moreover, most fruit have a lot of water molecule in their structure. Mango is a type of fruit that contain
lot water so when we dehydrated the sample, it got rid of a lot of its weight.
2. Each group member should comment on the changes they observed from the wet to dry sample.
Anon: My fruit looks very shriveled and dried up, although it still smelled like mango, it shrunk. The
color had turned into a darker shade of yellow. The skin feels really hard and like theres no water left,
leading me to come to the conclusion that mango is mostly skin and water. Ive tasted it both times, and
after its dried, it tasted very sweet but less juicy.
Guy: My fruit looks darker than before it was dehydrated. It is dry but not very hard. Its get clearly
smaller, also its smell get softer.
Kim: My fruit looks more wither and the fruit color of the fruit was also change to be a green. However,
the smell of the dehydrated fruit was still the same as before.
Cliff: My fruit looks slightly darker and shrank a lot before it had been dehydrated. The skin looks
completely dried. It still has the mango taste but it wasnt as juicy (of course). Thus, mangoes contain
large parts of water.
Pat: My fruit looks darker than before. It doesnt look like it is completely dried up as it is not crunchy,
but it taste sweeter. Also the smell is still the same.
3. Do you think your sample needed more time to dry? Why or why not?
ANS: From my opinion, I think our group need more time to dry more because when I tasted on the
mango that we have dry some of them are not already completely dry. It still had some water splitting out
from the mango when I chewed it.
4. How did the average moisture content of the other fruit samples compare to your group?
ANS: Our average moisture content of our fruit (mango) is 82.37%. When we compared to another
group, we realized that mango was the fourth of fifth place in moisture content. The cucumber was the
first, which is 95.81%. Cantaloupes were the second, which is 85.37%. Sharon fruit was the third, which
is 83.945, and Banana was the last, which is 77.9%.
5. Why did some samples dehydrate more efficiently than others? (For within your group and also
between different groups)
ANS: Humans are not perfect we make mistakes no matter how precise we try to make our cuts theyre
still bound to be some inequality. We also werent really paying attention, so the mistakes could be more
than minor. Possibly, the part of the fruit we cut might also have an effect on the water. Since, if we cut
out a part with say free water. The water would be easier to remove compared to if we cut a part with
trapped water or bound water which would dehydrate very slowly. So if some fruits have more bound and
trapped water than other fruits it would not dehydrate as easily.
6. Research advantages and disadvantages to dehydrated food products and explain. Include APA
citations.
ANS: The advantages of dehydrating food products are that dehydrated fruits taste better as the natural
sugars in the fruits are intensified, giving us an illusion that the fruit is sweeter. Another advantage of
dehydrated fruit is that it is convenient, or easier to transport, and it can be preserved longer than fresh
fruits. It is often healthier or at least as healthy as normal fruits, The disadvantages of dehydrated food are
that you need to be patient to complete the process, As fresh food contains enzyme that can react to

variety things. Also, the taste and appearances will be not so attractive for those who never eat dried food
before.

Conclusion
From the result that we had obtained, we got the moisture content average of our mango at
82.37%. By doing this process, wed learned a lot of things. Dehydrating the food makes the food last
longer, which is another way to keep the food edible for a certain amount of time food without using
chemicals. By dehydrating food, the food shrinks because most of the food we eat contains water. For this
experiment we tried dehydrating fruits, which made most of the water in the fruit disappear, leaving only
sugar and other nutrients. During the experiment, we made some errors that made our results not accurate
as much. We hadnt diced the mango in the same size for every cube. Causing roughly different sizes,
which resulted in slightly different results of moisture content in the mango. Some of our diced mango
still had some moisture to it because we didnt use the dehydrator as long enough. Our future
consideration is to make the mango cubes more precise so that the mass of each mango would be slightly
the same, we should also use the same part of mango for each piece.

Bibliography:
Free and Bound Water. (2010, April 9). Retrieved from http://www.foodscienceavenue.com/2010/04/free-and-bound-water.html.

Work log
Name
Anon Durongpisitkul
Karis Katekovit
Vitavas Kitiyanasap
Kanin Jaroensattayatham
Sirapat Amornkul

Section
Procedure
Conclusion
Introduction
Data table,Conclusion.
Material/ #6-and another one

Yes/No Name.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes