ABSTRACT
One of the conventional techniques in food preservation is the drying process, which may have positive and negative impacts on food components. Low-temperature drying of food has many advantages as compared with conventional high-temperature counterparts. The low-temperature approach is of particular interest when the focus is on retaining heat-sensitive food ingredients. This chapter deals with recent advances and general aspects of the low-temperature drying processes toward the dehydration of foods. Concepts, process considerations, and effects of various influencing operational parameters on each drying process have been described in detail. In addition, the conjugation of low-temperature drying techniques with other techniques has been presented. Though these approaches may not directly be referred to as non-thermal processing techniques, the focus of this chapter is to highlight the growing relevance of such low-temperature processes that have the potential to replace conventional operations in several applications.
