## 3 Results and Discussion
### Color Changes in Tarhana Samples during Storage  
The effect of irradiation on the color of tarhana is also of interest. In this sense, the effect of strong ionizing radiation should be evaluated in terms of the color components. The L value of the tarhana samples increased at the initial storage and stabilized after the third month. The rate of L value of tarhana increased depending on the irradiation dose applied, but there was no significant difference in the L value between the samples in terms of doses and storage time (Figure 2a). The whitening at the end of the first month observed in this study is a common problem encountered in the storage of tarhana. The main factor here may be the loss of color due to the effect of light. The \"a\" value slightly decreased during the storage. This might be related to oxygen or light contact rather than the effect of irradiation. However, the decline rate of the \"a\" value of tarhana samples was dependent on radiation dose, where the 10 kGy dose did reduce faster than the other doses (Figure 2b,c). In contrast, the \"b\" value of the tarhana samples increased in the first month and remained stable for a further four months. Tarhana has a characteristic yellowish color resulting from the paprika used in the ingredients, which is important for consumer perception [2]. These results clearly showed that irradiation has no detrimental effect on the color quality of tarhana samples, especially in terms of whitening, due to the loss of pigments arising from the paprika used in the production.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l l} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Samples**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Months**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**pH**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Acidity Value \({}^{*}\)**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Moisture Content (\%)**} \\ \hline
5 kGy & 0 & \(4.18\pm 0.01\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(22.57\pm 1.66\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(16.87\pm 0.13\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) \\  & 1 & \(4.83\pm 0.04\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(19.35\pm 1.80\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(16.76\pm 0.21\)\({}^{\text{Aab}}\) \\  & 3 & \(5.11\pm 0.03\)\({}^{\text{Bb}}\) & \(12.33\pm 0.66\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(17.65\pm 0.22\)\({}^{\text{Ac}}\) \\  & 5 & \(5.45\pm 0.14\)\({}^{\text{Bb}}\) & \(10.70\pm 0.04\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(17.70\pm 0.38\)\({}^{\text{Abc}}\) \\ \hline
10 kGy & 0 & \(4.15\pm 0.01\)\({}^{\text{Aa}}\) & \(21.36\pm 0.59\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(16.98\pm 0.17\)\({}^{\text{Aa}}\) \\  & 1 & \(4.54\pm 0.06\)\({}^{\text{Aa}}\) & \(21.71\pm 1.01\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(16.64\pm 0.25\)\({}^{\text{Aab}}\) \\  & 3 & \(5.21\pm 0.36\)\({}^{\text{Ab}}\) & \(13.43\pm 0.46\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(18.09\pm 0.19\)\({}^{\text{Ac}}\) \\  & 5 & \(5.68\pm 0.25\)\({}^{\text{Ab}}\) & \(10.55\pm 0.62\)\({}^{\text{Ba}}\) & \(18.36\pm 0.13\)\({}^{\text{Abc}}\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} Capital letters represent the p \(<0.05\) level of statistical difference between the storage times of the tarhana samples, while the lower-case letters show the p \(<0.05\) level of statistical difference between the irradiation doses. \({}^{*}\): The acidity values of the tarhana samples were given according to the standard TS8222 [5] due to the amount of NaOH used to neutralize the acidity of 10 g tarhana extracted with 67% ethanol.  
\end{table}
Table 1: _Cont._  
Figure 2: _Cont._