2006 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 61-73
Integrated investigation on application of infrared rays to food processing was dissertated from the view points of infrared radiation and spectroscopy. Drying and pasteurization of the food models were dealt in the most effective application of infrared radiation. The infrared drying characteristics of the food models were studied by focusing on the factors influencing their characteristics, and the importance of the diffusive infrared spectroscopic characteristics was emphasized for the quantitative evaluation of the effects of infrared drying. Moreover, infrared pasteurization of bacteria was more effective than the conventional thermal heating methods, and it was suggested that the infrared pasteurization effect was due to the absorption of infrared radiation energy by the sample in a very thin domain near the surface and to the bulk temperature. Then the infrared spectroscopy was studied for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of foods. In addition, the developed infrared spectroscopic methods were applied to get a good grasp of the sugar metabolic kinetics of suspension cells, the monitoring of the enzyme reaction associating with ionic dissociative metabolites, and the food tasting. Consequently, these studies represented an important step in the developments of the effective thermal operations and the on-line monitoring for food processing.
