Emerging Heating Technologies in Dairy, Eggs, and Meat Products Processing and Preservation

Abstract

The microbial safety of the product, dairy, meat and eggs products continues is a constant concern of the food industry. The foodborne illness remains serious public-health concern. At the same time, the market for animal products is becoming more dynamic and global. In recent years, many new preservation methods have developed to extend the quality and shelf-life, minimize risk, protect the environment, and improve functional, sensory, and nutritional properties [1,2]. In recent decades, many new preservation methods have been developed and improved in order to ensure the sensorial and nutritional quality of products, increase their shelf-life, reduce the risk of disease, and minimize environmental impacts. Some of the emerging technologies are already deployed in industries and others are still waiting to be implemented [3]. The emerging technologies are classified into thermal and non-thermal methods. Regarding the thermal methods, we will deal with the ohmic heating (OH), radio frequency (RF) and microwave heating (MH). In traditional heat processing techniques, heating occurs by the contact of the food with a heated surface, and the heat is transferred by conduction and convection. In contrast, in the new heating technologies, called volumetric heating, the heat is generated throughout the whole volume of the material, by the use of electromagnetic fields. The OH is based on passing an alternating current (50Hz to 100kHz) through the product. Radio frequency and microwave heating use different frequencies, below 300MHz and above 300MHz, respectively. Radio frequency and microwave heating (known as dielectric heating [4,5].