Quality Characteristics and Volatile Compounds of Foam Mat Dried Corn Flour

Foam mat drying: Recent advances on foam dynamics, mechanistic modeling and hybrid drying approach

Drying is one of the oldest and most widely used methods for food preservation. It reduces the availability of moisture and inhibits microbial and enzymatic spoilage in food products. Foam mat drying is a mild drying technique used for semiliquid and liquid foodstuff. It is useful for heat-sensitive and sticky liquid food products. In this process, liquid food is converted into foam using surfactant additives, which can be a foaming agent or foam stabilizer. These additives are surface-active compounds of vegetative and animal origins. The foamed material is then convectively dried using hot air. The foam mat drying is an efficient and economical technique. With the emergence of different hybrid techniques such as foam mat freeze drying, foamed spray drying, foamed vacuum drying, and microwave assisted foam mat drying, the powders' physical, chemical, and functional properties have enhanced many folds. These strategies have shown very promising results in terms of cost and time efficiency in almost all the cases barring a few exceptions. This review article attempts to comprehensively summarize the mechanisms dictating the foam mat drying process, novel technological tools for modeling, mathematical and computational modeling, effects of various foaming additives, and various hybrid techniques employed to foam mat drying.

Physicochemical design rules for the formulation of novel salt particles with optimised saltiness

Novel sodium reduction strategies are urgently required by the food industry. We hypothesised that redesigning salt crystals (size, density, hydrophobicity and flow properties) will offer a new route to increase saltiness and therefore reduce sodium. Eight salts were compared with different physicochemical properties, the resultant particles were characterised and adhesion to product, loss in-pack, rate of dissolution and ultimately saltiness perception were evaluated. Principle findings included that particle adhesion was driven by particle size (r = -0.85, p = 0.008), bulk density (r = -0.80, p = 0.017) and flow properties (r = 0.77, p = 0.015); loss in-pack was associated with particle size and hydrophobicity of the salt particle while dissolution and/or saltiness perception was also driven by particle size and hydrophobicity of the salt particle. The findings offer a new set of design rules for future ingredient design for the food and flavour industries.