ABSTRACT
At present, there is a great need to develop techniques to maintain the natural qualities of cooked ready-to-eat (RTE) foods without using chemical preservatives, for example, vacuum packaging or modied atmosphere packaging (MAP) (Day, 1998). Foods must be prepared at relatively high temperatures (around 100°C) and then packed in vacuum or modied atmosphere (MA). The process is nalized with a rapid cooling step followed by refrigerated storage. The nal product should be reheated at approximately 70°C for 2 min before consumption (Sallares, 1995).
