In terms of crispness it can be seen again from Table 4
that LPSSD–FIR yielded dried banana slices with a larger
number of peaks (hence indicating that the products were
crispier) compared with VACUUM–FIR, especially at
80 C. This might be due to the larger and more pores that occurred during LPSSD–FIR. However, the effects of drying
methods on the number of peaks were not significant
when drying was performed at 90 C. These results were
again compared with those of Thomkapanish (2006). It
was found that LPSSD–FIR and VACUUM–FIR provided
dried banana slices with slightly larger number of
peaks compared with those dried only by LPSSD. This is
again due to the larger and more pores presented during
LPSSD–FIR and VACUUM–FIR.
The results of hardness and crispness of dried banana
slices were also compared with those of commercially available
banana chips (Fruit KingTM), which had the values of
maximum force and number of peaks of 55.72 ± 5.48 N
and 16 ± 3, respectively. It was found that all dried banana
slices in this study had lower values of maximum force
(harder) and larger number of peaks (crispier) than the
commercially available banana chips