ABSTRACT
Phenolic compounds occur in all fruits as a diverse group of secondary metabolites. When cut fruits are exposed to oxidation leads to browning reactions. Browning of fruits and fruit products is one of the major problems in the fruit industry and is believed to be probably the first cause of quality loss during postharvest handling, processing and storage. Browning can also adversely affect flavor and nutritional value. Hence the present study has been undertaken to explore the indigenous method of preserving cut fruits in the refrigeration. The cut fruits of apple is rapped in 7 types of leaves such as Badam leaf, Banana leaf, Lotus leaf, Mandarai leaf, Papaya leaf, Pumpkin leaf and Teak leaf and kept inside the fridge, simultaneously a control of cut fruits were also maintained .The results were quite interesting to note that cut fruits of apple wrapped in lotus leaf and banana leaf delayed the browning process till 7 days the browning started only from 8th day of preservation. Indicates that theses two leaves can be used for preservation of cut fruits .whereas fruits wrapped in other leaves showed browning from the second day it self. This type of study can be further extended to explore the active ingredient present in the aforesaid leaves will help us to a most viable indigenous method to preserve the cut fruits in large scale.