Consumers increasingly demand convenience foods of the highest quality in terms of natural flavor and taste, and which are free from additives and preservatives. This demand has triggered the need for the development of a number of nonthermal approaches to food processing, of which high-pressure technology has proven to be very valuable. A number of recent publications have demonstrated novel and diverse uses of this technology. Its novel features, which include destruction of microorganisms at room temperature or lower, have made the technology commercially attractive. Enzymes and even spore forming bacteria can be inactivated by the application of pressure-thermal combinations, This review aims to identify the opportunities and challenges associated with this technology. In addition to discussing the effects of high pressure on food components, this review covers the combined effects of high pressure processing with: gamma irradiation, alternating current, ultrasound, and carbon dioxide or anti-microbial treatment. Further, the applications of this technology in various sectors - fruits and vegetables, dairy, and meat processing - have been dealt with extensively. The integration of high-pressure with other matured processing operations such as blanching, dehydration, osmotic dehydration, rehydration, frying, freezing / thawing and solid-liquid extraction has been shown to open up new processing options. The key challenges identified include: heat transfer problems and resulting non-uniformity in processing, obtaining reliable and reproducible data for process validation, lack of detailed knowledge about the interaction between high pressure, and a number of food constituents, packaging and statutory issues.

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High intensity electrical field pulse (0.22 to 1.60 kV/cm) pretreatment was tested to accelerate the osmotic dehydration of carrot. Applied energy in the range of 0.04 to 2.25 kJ/kg, increased cell disintegration index in the range of 0.09 to 0.84 with < 1 °C rise in the product temperature. The effective diffusion coefficients of water and solute, determined using a Fickian diffusion model, increased exponentially with electric field strength according to D = A exp(-B/E). The rise in effective diffusion coefficient may be attributed to an increase in cell wall permeability, facilitating transport of water and solute. Such increase was evidenced by cell disintegration index and softening of product.

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High pressure pretreatment (100-700 MPa) was applied to enhance mass transfer rates during osmotic dehydration of pineapples and accelerate the process. Experimentally determined diffusivity values, based on a Fickian model, increased fourfold for water and twofold for sugar. Diffusivity values were correlated with pretreatment pressure by an equation of the form DϭA exp(ϪB/P), which suggests that diffusivity would level after an initial increase in pressure. The increase was attributed to breaking-up of cells walls which facilitated the transport of water. Evidence for the extent of cell wall break-up with applied pressure was based on differential interference contrast microscopic examination of tissue. Preliminary experiments on rehydration characteristics showed high pressure pretreated samples did not absorb as much water as controls.

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