ABSTRACT

Foods begin to lose their quality the moment they are harvested, through changes resulting from enzymatic, microbiological, chemical, or physical reactions. Food preservation prevents these deteriorative reactions, ensuring its safety and extending food’s shelf life. Microorganisms and enzymes are the main agents responsible for food spoilage and therefore the targets of preservation techniques. Currently, heat is the main food preservation technique to act via inactivation, which is used substantially in the food industry (Raso and Barbosa-Canovas, 2003). Although thermal preservation methods provide safer foods, there is a loss of food quality associated with this processing method. Thermal treatment can cause undesirable alterations of sensory attributes, i.e., color, smell, ¢avor, texture, and nutritional (vitamins, proteins) qualities. Consumers now demand minimally processed fresh-like food with high-quality sensory and nutritional attributes. For this reason, targeted nonthermal food processing and preservation methods are gaining importance (Demirdoven and Baysal, 2009). Hence, the main objective of the nonthermal food preservation methods is to minimize the degradation of food quality through limiting heat damage of the food. The development of food-processing technology has been in¢uenced by numerous factors; among them, consumer demands have undoubtedly oriented the new trends in the manufacturing, preservation, and control of food (Senorans et al., 2003).