ABSTRACT
Drying is the oldest method of food preservation which involves the removal of moisture from a food product. It is an indispensable unit operation in the food and agricultural processing sectors. The term drying is often used exchangeably with evaporation and dehydration. However, these are entirely different phenomena. While the final product in drying is solid, the end product resultant from evaporation is a highly viscous liquid. Also, the final moisture content of a dried food product is more than 2.5%; whereas, dehydrated products have moisture content of less than 2.5% (Vega-Mercado et al., 2001).
