Electrical conductivities of three vegetable and two meat samples were determined by subjecting them to a constant voltage power supply in a static ohmic heating device. Conductivities of vegetable samples were increased by soaking them in salt solutions, while soaking in water resulted in reduced conductivity due to leaching of electrolytes. Conductivities under ohmic heating conditions increased linearly with temperature. When field strengths were decreased, the conductivity‐temperature curve gradually became nonlinear, and under conventional heating conditions, a sharp transition was observed.

No abstract

No abstract

The effects of field strength and multiple thermal treatments on electrical conductivity of strawberry products were investigated. Electrical conductivity increased with temperature for all the products and conditions tested following linear relations. Electrical conductivity was found to depend on the strawberry-based product. An increase of electrical conductivity with field strength was obvious for two strawberry pulps and strawberry filling but not for strawberry topping or strawberry-apple sauce. Thermal treatments caused visible changes (a decrease) in electrical conductivity values of both strawberry pulps tested, but the use of a conventional or ohmic pre-treatment induces a different behavior of the pulps' conductivity values. Ascorbic acid degradation followed first order kinetics for both conventional and ohmic heating treatments and the kinetic constants obtained were in the range of the values reported in the literature for other food systems. The presence of an electric field does not affect ascorbic acid degradation. ᮊ Industrial relevance: Due to the ability of the ohmic heating technologies to achieve rapid and reasonably uniform heating of electrically conductive materials its impact on food quality is of interest. This study shows interesting relationships between heat treatment and electrical conductivity of strawberry pulps and also suggested the product dependency for optimum ohmic heating applications.

A device was developed to determine the electrical conductivities of foods under ohmic or conventional heating conditions. Orange and tomato juices (serum and various solids contents) were tested in the device. the electrical conductivity of juices increased with temperature and decreased with solids content. the temperature dependence of conductivity was linear, both under conventional and ohmic heating. Experiments on suspensions of carrot juice solids, and polystyrene spheres in sodium phosphate solution showed an increase in electrical conductivity of the suspension with decreasing particle size.