Microorganisms in food
Introduction
When we treat a food we must apply appropriate technologies to achieve its conservation, one of them is scalding technology that, due to a thermal process, a fundamental process operation in most of the food industry sectors. Scalding technology is not a conservation method but rather a unitary operation that is carried out before food processing, emphasizing fruits and vegetables.
Developing
Its main objective is to inactivate the enzymatic activity responsible for the alterations of organoleptic characteristics and the decrease in the initial microbial load of food, by inactivation of heat -sensitive microorganisms. Hot water and steam are the most commonly used heating media for scalding in the industry, different hot and steam stings have been designed to improve product quality, increase performance, and facilitate product processing With different thermal properties and geometries.
The hot water method is to submerge the food in hot water at a temperature between 70 ° -100 ° and is taken to a drained and cooled section then stops the action of the enzymes that cause the browning of the vegetables, thus maintaining the organoleptic characteristics. And the steam method in a very intense local heating of the food surface; This causes the weakening or disorganization of tissues. In this way the skin of the food is more easily detached, because the steam at a high temperature causes its decompression.
But these methods have advantages and disadvantages, the hot water method is cheaper and more efficient in the use of energy than steam. However, there are large losses of water soluble compounds, such as vitamins, minerals and sugars, also high water consumption and large volume of effluents, risk of contamination by thermophilic bacteria. And steam methods there are few loss of hydrosoluble components, lower water consumption and effluents, easy to clean, sterilize equipment, but it has high investment costs and lower energy efficiency compared to the hot water method.
conclusion
The scalding is an ancient and well established practice in the food industry, so the main concern was the reduction of waste effluents and energy efficiency, but we must also sign up towards other priorities such as the improvement of product quality (Increased retention of nutrients and other frescoes such as quality attributes), which reduces energy consumption, and the reduction of waste production, but if you want to implement this, existing equipment must be modified so that it is more FAST PRODUCT TRANSPORTATION. Therefore there is still a margin of improving a seemingly simple technology.
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