Heat Transfer Principles

Abstract

Food preservation remains to be one of the important food processing industries. Early approaches to food preservation applied the methods of preservation naturally available, such as sun drying, salting, and fermentation, which were used to provide food in periods when fresh foods were not available. As civilization developed, demand for large quantities of better quality processed food also increased. This led to the development of a large food preservation industry aimed at supplying food of high quality in an economical way. Thermal sterilization of foods is the most significant part of this industry (Karel et al., 1975). Other methods of sterilization such as a pulsed electric field (Barbosa-Canovas et al., 1998; Barbosa-Canovas and Zhang, 2000; Jia et al., 1999; Martin et al., 1997; Qin et al., 1994, 1998; Sepulveda-Ahumada et al., 2000; Vega-Mercado et al., 1997, 1999; Zhang et al., 1995), ultrahigh hydrostatic pressure (Barbosa-Canovas et al., 1997a; Furukawa and Hayakawa, 2000; Paloua et al., 1999; Sancho et al., 1999), and ultraviolet (UV) treatment (Farid et al., 2000) have been widely studied. However, with the exception of high-pressure processing, these technologies have not yet reached commercialization stage.