Title: Prolonging the Shelf Life of Leche Puto by Replacing Sugar with Honey

Introduction

Background of the Study Food products from Tayabas City, Quezon like yema cake, cassava cake, and leche puto are becoming popular throughout near provinces. With this, there are problems on exporting that cannot be avoided. Included here was the problem about the narrow shelf life of these food products due to the ingredients used in food processing. Leche puto is a kind of dessert that is produced from combining leche flan and puto. It contains water and sugar that makes it more vulnerable to microorganisms. Thus, it only last for two days in room temperature and barely lasts for three days when refrigerated. So to solve the exportation problems, the use of preservative should be applied in processing leche puto. Preserving food has been used to store food products and make their shelf life last longer. Adding preservatives on food products is one method in prolonging the shelf life of food products. Preservatives can be either natural or artificial. An example of a natural preservative is honey. According to an episode of a food-focused animated series titled Yakitate!! Japan, Germans are storing dry fruits by soaking them in honey for a long time before consuming. In a study, it is stated that honey was used in preserving milk due to its contents’ antimicrobial properties (Krushna, Kowsalya, Radha, & Narayanan, 2007). Having anti-oxidant properties, honey was also used in salad dressing as a natural sweetener and as well as a replacement for ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), a preservative that is usually included in salad dressings (Honey Adds Health Benefits, Is Natural Preservative And Sweetener In Salad Dressings, 2008).

Objective of the Study The general objective of the study is to prolong the shelf life of leche puto using honey as its both sweetener and preservative. The specific objectives are: 1. to know the effectiveness of honey in preserving leche puto; 2. to assess the measurement of sugar to honey replacement that will be most effective using fractions one is to one, one is to three, and zero is to one sugar to honey replacement; 3. to compare the spoiling time between leche puto with honey and without honey; and 4. to compare the microbial count between leche puto with honey and without honey.

Significance of the Study The main purpose of the study is to help manufacturers, consumers, and resellers of leche puto in many aspects. For the manufacturers, this study can help them increase their export orders with their products having prolonged shelf life. As for the consumers, they can avoid immediate consumption of leche puto after buying but they can store it for a while instead. In the resellers’ view, this study may help them increase their order from the manufacturers without hesitation since the product has longer time before spoiling. With this purpose, this study can also partially help in increasing the popularity of leche puto not only on neighboring provinces but also throughout the country.

Scope and Limitation This study is only limited to the preservative contents of honey and their effects on the shelf life of leche puto. This does not include the honey’s effect on food processing and honey’s health benefits as food additive. Further research is recommended in order to the many other properties of honey in this study.