*2.10.* β*-Carotene*

The extraction of β-carotene (BC) was performed using the method of Olives et al. [38] with some modifications. FOP (0.8 g) or freeze-dried puree (0.2 g) were mixed with 9 mL of hexane/ethanol/acetone (50:25:25, *v*/*v*/*v*) using a magnetic multi-stirrer at 200 rpm (JEIO TECH Lab Companion MS-51M, Korea), under darkness and at room temperature for 30 min. The homogenates were centrifuged at 11,515× *g* at 4 ◦C for 10 min (GYROZEN Co., 1236R, Daejeon, Korea). Distilled water was added to the supernatant (10 mL distilled water/100 mL supernatant) and was manually stirred for 2 min. The absorbance of the upper layer was measured at 446 nm (spectrophotometer V-1200 VWR, VWR, Radnor, PA, USA) [38]. The BC was calculated as mg BC/100 g db sample using a β-carotene (Dr. Ehrenstorfer, Augsburg, Germany) calibration curve in the range of 0.5–7 ppm. The BC was referred to the percentage (%) of this bioactive compound preserved in the FDP in reference to the FOP (Equation (7)). Three replicates were performed per sample.
