Study of non-thermal technologies to preserve the quality of fresh foods

Abstract

The awareness of consuming healthy, fresh-like and minimally processed products has notably increased. Food Industry usually employs thermal treatments to assure food safety, but it can produce the loss of quality and nutritional properties. Finding alternative non thermal technologies to achieve enzymatic inactivation while maintaining the quality of the food is of great interest. The main studied technology is High Pressure Carbon Dioxide (HPCD), which employs pressurized CO2 at mild temperatures, avoiding the loss of thermolabile compounds. Cloudy apple juice is the main studied product, but this technology has been also applied on other food products to compare its effect. HPCD technology has been compared with thermosonication, cold plasma or high pressure processing. The effect of these treatments over quality properties and their changes during storage has also been studied. Keywords: Non-thermal technologies, fresh food, cloudy apple juice, enzyme inactivation, quality properties.