ABSTRACT
Food kinetics, referring to both biological and physicochemical changes, involve the study of the rates and mechanisms that are responsible for the reactions of interest. The kinetic studies describe these changes and their rates quantitatively, making such an approach a valuable tool in relation to food processing, safety and quality. Mathematical relationships are additionally needed to adequately describe the influence of different external or internal factors, such as pH, water activity, and pressure. The scope of a thorough kinetic study, in a wide range of constant temperatures, of the change of dominating quality and/or microbiological indices of a food, is to obtain a validated, mathematical shelf life model. A mathematical equation describing growth of microorganisms vs. time is used to predict the microbiological quality of a food as a function of several factors, such as temperature, pH, and water activity. This chapter also presents alternative procedures used to determine the parameters associated with the kinetic models.
