2.1. Materials
Two banana cultivars were used in this study: Musa AAA group,
Cavendish subgroup and Musa ABB group, Pisang Awak subgroup.
These cultivars were planted and sold in Guangdong province,
China. Using the criteria reported by SH Pratt Co. (Luton, UnitedKingdom; Soltani et al., 2011), the fruits were divided into seven
ripening states: 1-entirely green; 2-green with a trace of yellow;
3-more green than yellow; 4-more yellow than green; 5-yellow
with a trace of green; 6-entirely yellow; 7-entirely yellow with
brown speckles. Bananas at ripening stage 1 were selected and
purchased from a local market. Subsets of these bananas were
stored at room temperature for different periods of time to attain
ripening stages 2–7. However, only bananas at stages 1–5 were
used in this study because RS samples from bananas at stages 6
and 7 were colloid-like substances that were difficult to grind.
All chemicals used in this study were of analytical grade