ABSTRACT
The importance of electrical conductivity (EC) as a key parameter in the Ohmic heating process of food material was discussed in Chapter 3, methods of measurements were also explained and available data on the EC of different foods including liquids and solids were classified and presented for variety of fruits, vegetables, and meat commodities in Chapter 4. There are several parameters that can affect and change the values of EC for a given commodities, these parameters will be highlighted in this chapter. EC is a material property that has to be identified like other thermo-physical properties of materials such as thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and heat capacity. These properties are not fixed values, and could be varied under different conditions especially for biological materials including foodstuffs. Therefore, attempts have been made to develop multiregression and empirical models to predict the EC of a given material as a function of most significant influencing factors. The existing models for numbers of food material will be discussed and presented in the following chapter.
