FIRMNESS MEASUREMENT OF PROCESSED TABLE BEETS.

A rapid back extrusion method for estimating textural quality of processed table beets was well correlated with taste panel evaluation of commercial (r= 0.91) and experimental samples (r= 0.98). An estimate of the mean of the fluctuations of the plateau of the force-distance recording was found to provide a less variable value for firmness than the maximum force. The extrusion method was correlated with a puncture method (r= 0.91).