ABSTRACT
Among today’s most important trends in food processing is the development and perfection of gentle, energy effi cient, and waste-free technologies. With the marketer’s goal to design fresh-like yet shelf stable functional products comes the technologist’s need to develop highly sophisticated systems. These systems should be adapted to the specifi c characteristics of the raw materials to be processed. The systems should be designed with certain requirements and situations in mind, such as subsequent or combined processes for optimum product quality, safety, and function. In addition, the processing of functional foods and food constituents should integrate the entire food chain in order to produce maximum function in the raw materials and to maintain or even increase it during processing.1
