Abstract
One of the methods that has a potential to minimize the formation of harmful ice crystal is a reduction of moisture content of material. An experiment has been done to examine the possibility of preventing quality loss by microwave vacuum drying in preliminary process of food-frozen storage. The experimental results show that decreasing the water content in onion cells is effective to lower the freezing temperature even if the cooling rate is slow. Also, the formation of smaller ice crystal can be achieved by reduction of moisture content in onion cells. Furthermore, reducing the moisture content of oyster before freezing was effective to minimize the drip loss when being thawed.
