Pasteurization of flavored shredded pork using Zno nanoparticles combined with radio frequency pasteurization technology

Electromagnetic wave-based technology for ready-to-eat foods preservation: a review of applications, challenges and prospects

In recent years, the ready-to-eat foods market has grown significantly due to its high nutritional value and convenience. However, these foods are also at risk of microbial contamination, which poses food safety hazards. Additionally, traditional high-temperature sterilization methods can cause food safety and nutritional health problems such as protein denaturation and lipid oxidation. Therefore, exploring and developing effective sterilization technologies is imperative to ensure food safety and nutritional properties, and protect consumers from potential foodborne diseases. This paper focuses on electromagnetic wave-based pasteurization technologies, including thermal processing technologies such as microwave, radio frequency, and infrared, as well as non-thermal processing technologies like ultraviolet, irradiation, pulsed light, and photodynamic inactivation. Furthermore, it also reviews the antibacterial mechanisms, advantages, disadvantages, and recent applications of these technologies in ready-to-eat foods, and summarizes their limitations and prospects. By comparing the limitations of traditional high-temperature sterilization methods, this paper highlights the significant advantages of these pasteurization techniques in effectively inhibiting microbial growth, slowing lipid oxidation, and preserving food nutrition and flavor. This review may contribute to the industrial application and process optimization of these pasteurization technologies, providing an optimal choice for preserving various types of ready-to-eat foods.

Nanoparticle applications in food - a review

The use of nanotechnology in the food industry raises uncertainty in many respects. For years, achievements of nanotechnology have been applied mainly in biomedicine and computer science, but recently it has also been used in the food industry. Due to the extremely small (nano) scale, the properties and behavior of nanomaterials may differ from their macroscopic counterparts. They can be used as biosensors to detect reagents or microorganisms, monitor bacterial growth conditions, increase food durability e.g. when placed in food packaging, reducing the amount of certain ingredients without changing the consistency of the product (research on fat substitutes is underway), improve the taste of food, make some nutrients get better absorbed by the body, etc. There are companies on the market that are already introducing nanoparticles into the economy to improve their functionality, e.g. baby feeding bottles. This review focuses on the use of nanoparticles in the food industry, both organic (chitosan, cellulose, proteins) and inorganic (silver, iron, zinc oxide, titanium oxide, etc.). The use of nanomaterials in food production requires compliance with all legal requirements regarding the safety and quantity of nano-processed food products described in this review. In the future, new methods of testing nanoparticles should be developed that would ensure the effectiveness of compounds subjected to, for example, nano-encapsulation, i.e. whether the encapsulation process had a positive impact on the specific properties of these compounds. Nanotechnology has revolutionized our approach towards food engineering (from production to processing), food storage and the creation of new materials and products, and the search for new product applications.

Radio frequency as an innovative method to produce low-fat French fries

BACKGROUND

A large amount of evidence shows that excessive fat intake can increase the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular disease. The main purpose of this study was to use radio frequency (RF) technology to prepare low-fat French fries.

RESULTS

RF treatment for 10 min significantly decreased the force required to cut potatoes and inhibited the enzymatic browning of fresh-cut potatoes. Moreover, RF treatment increased the hardness, gumminess, and chewiness of French fries from 388.55 g, 85.67, and 33.27 to 776.93 g, 159.36, and 70.11, respectively. Furthermore, RF treatment for 10 min reduced the oil content of French fries by 28.0% compared to that of the control group. This result was related to the pre-gelatinized potato starch content after RF treatment. Pre-gelatinized starch forms a 'protective film', that prevents oil from entering the fries during frying.

CONCLUSION

Moderate RF treatment (10 min) reduced the oil content of French fries without making their texture significantly different from that of commercial French fries. These findings may provide a new perspective for the application of RF technology in the development of low-fat fried foods. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Role of dehydration technologies in processing for advanced ready-to-eat foods: A comprehensive review

Advanced ready-to-eat foods, which can be consumed directly or only need simple processed before consumption, refer to the products that processing with cutting-edge food science and technology and have better quality attribute. Cold chain and chemical addition are commonly used options to ensure microbial safety of high moisture advanced ready-to-eat foods. However, this requires freezing/thawing processing at high cost or has undesirable residue. Dehydration treatment has the potential to compensate those shortcomings. This article reviewed the positive effects of dehydration on advanced ready-to-eat foods, current application status of dehydration technologies, novel dehydration related technologies and the pathogenic bacteria control of products. It is observed that dehydration treatment is receiving increasing attention for ready-to-eat foods including space foods, 3 D-printed personalized foods and formula foods for special medical purposes. Recently developed drying technologies such as pulsed spouted microwave freeze-drying and infrared freeze-drying have attracted much interest due to their excellent drying characteristics. Finally, intelligent drying, dehydration-nano-hybridization and dehydration-induced multi-dimensional modification technology are some of the emerging R and D areas in this field.