NEW TRENDS IN FOOD PROCESSING

Preservation is the most important process related to all the food products. Preservation of food products can be achieved by various ways like addition of salt, sugars, preservatives, antioxidants, naturally occurring antimicrobial substances and also by the processes like drying, freezing, refrigerated storage and Hurdle Technology. Novel technologies like microwave heating, Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) Technology, High Pressure Processing (HPP), Pulsed Light Technology, Ohmic Heating, Ultra sonics, Pulsed X-Rays are also applied for the preservation of food products. The main problem with the thermal processing method is loss of colour, flavor, vitamins and other nutrients in food products. A detailed review is made for different non thermal processing methods and its merits and demerits are analyzed and illustrated for applications in various industries. This paper investigates different non thermal processing methods and its suitability to different food processing industries which deals with different foods like meat, milk, fish, egg and ready-to-eat foods.