Foods and their characteristics: Physical aspects

Abstract

Physical properties are important food characteristics that may be very important and transcendent depending of the specific food and particular processing. These properties should be considered and controlled, no matter of the industrial transformation, some of them are color, density, flow nature, form, heat capacity, size, texture, and viscoelasticity, among others. Color and texture are more general and notably affected by processing (formulation, drying, thermal treatment), whereas flow nature, density and viscoelasticity are less known and their changes throughout pumping, evaporation and high pressure applications require deeper knowledge.