Chestnuts are a widely consumed fruit around the world, being Portugal the fourth biggest
producer in Europe. Storage of these nuts is an important step during processing, and the most
widely used fumigant was banned in the European Union under the Montreal protocol due to
its toxicity. Recently, radiation has been introduced as a cheap and clean conservation
method. Previous studies of our research group proved that gamma radiation had no negative
effect on the nutritional value of chestnuts; in fact, storage time had a much bigger influence
on the chestnut quality. In the present study, we report the effect of a less ionizing radiation,
electron beam, with doses of 0, 0.5, 1, 3 and 6 kGy in the nutritional value of chestnuts (ash,
energy, fatty acids, sugars and tocopherols), previously stored at 4 ºC during 0, 30 and 60
days. The storage time seemed to reduce fat and energetic values but reported a tendency for
higher values of dry matter. Regarding fatty acids, there was a higher detected quantity of
C20:2 in non-irradiated samples, and four fatty acids were only detected in trace quantities
(C6:0; C8:0; C10:0 and C12:0). γ-tocopherol decreased during storage time but did not alter
its quantity for all the radiation doses (as like α-,β- and δ-tocopherol); in fact these
compounds were present in higher concentration in the irradiated samples. Sucrose and total
sugars were lower in non-irradiated samples and raffinose was only detected in irradiated
samples. Electron beam irradiation seems to be a suitable methodology, since the effects on
chemical and nutritional composition are very low, while storage time seems to be quite
important in chestnut deterioration.
