Preparation and study of permeability and water-related properties of squashbased edible sheets using response surface methodology

Nowadays attractiveness, marketability and food protection are the most important concerns of food industries. Application of edible and biodegradable coatings and sheets is of great interest for providing protection and beauty, and non-polluting for environment. The aim of this study was to optimize the formulation of squash-based edible sheet and to investigate the effect of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) (0.1-0.9 g), tragacanth (0-0.4 g) and glycerol (1.5-6.5 g) amounts on some physical properties of the resulted edible sheets, including oxygen permeability (OP) and water vapor permeability (WVP), moisture content, swelling capacity, solubility and water activity. Our results revealed that the increase in CMC content improved WVP of the sheets, whilst decreased their moisture content (P