Sugar in mango

Mango is a very popular specialty fruit in the United States and Its current popularity is attributed mainly to its unique flavor, aroma, and appearance. Flavor, especially, is a consumption attribute critical to consumer acceptability of mangoes.

Mango is mostly eaten fresh as a dessert also processed as juices, jams, jellies, nectars as well as crisp mango chips.

Organic acids and sugars are key components in the perception of mango flavor as in most fruit. The predominant acid is citric. On the other hand, as a result of starch hydrolysis from increased amylase activity during ripening, sucrose is the major sugar in the ripe fruit.

The fruit flesh of ripe mango contains about 15% of total sugars. Fructose is the major monosaccharide during the preclimateric phase, while sucrose is the principal sugar in ripe mango fruit.

The carbohydrate profile of this fruit is modified during the ripening process from complex carbohydrates such as starch to single sugars such as monosaccharides (glucose, fructose) and disaccharides (sucrose).

The USDA Nutrient Database (United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, 2018) reports that the total carbohydrate and sugar contents of Tommy Atkins, Haden, Kent, and Keitt cultivars per 100 g fruit is 14.98 and 13.66 g, respectively (sucrose, 6.97 g; glucose, 2.01; and fructose, 4.68 g), and 1.6 g of dietary fiber/100 g of fruit.

The amount of sugar of the harvested mangoes were significantly influenced by the stages of harvest and period of storage. Total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugar were sharply increased at optimum ripe stage, while slightly declined at last edible stage. All the sugars were the lowest at earliest harvests, which increased gradually with delay in harvest.
Sugar in mango

Mango ripening process

Mangoes are often harvested early in the ripening process and ripened to eating ripe stage after harvest. The quality of ripened mangoes will depend on maturity at harvest and on ripening conditions, especially temperature.

The ripening process of mango fruit involves numerous biochemical changes including increased respiration, ethylene, production, fruit softening, chlorophyll degradation, carotenoid synthesis and several other metabolic activities leading to changes in carbohydrates, organic acids, lipids, phenolics and volatile compounds.

Mango ripening is accompanied by increased ethylene production, which coordinates the ripening process. Mango expresses autocatalytic increase in ethylene production during ripening.

Ethylene production starts before full ripeness is reached. Ethylene production decreases as the fruit matures is then undetectable for a time and reappears upon imitation of ripening.

At the initiation of ripening, sucrose appears to be the major sugar component, which declines during the advancement of ripening with a simultaneously increase in glucose and fructose through the action of invertase. The starch is degraded by the activities of amylases during the ripening process.

The ripening process takes place within 4 to 8 days post-harvest at ambient temperature depending on cultivar and harvest maturity.
Mango ripening process

Fatty acids in mango fruits

Mango fruit contain amino acids, carbohydrates, fatty acids, minerals, organic acids, proteins and vitamins. Lipid components in mangoes, though found in minor quantities, are resumed to contribute to the characteristics aroma and flavour of mangoes.

Although mango fruits do not store lipids, these compounds have been associated with color and flavor development during ripening. The vast majority of lipids in mango are esters of long chain fatty acids. In mango fruits, the fatty acid oxidizing activity increases with ripening, while several fatty acids (particularly linoleic and oleic acids) decrease during ripening.

The fatty acid composition in fruit pulp has direct relationship with the aroma and flavour of mango fruit. An unusual fatty acid, named mangiferic acid, has been identified in the pulp of mango fruit which constitutes 5.4% of total acyl groups in the pulp lipids.
Fatty acids in mango fruits