Food wastage is a major issue impacting public health, the environment and the economy in the context of rising population and decreasing natural resources. Wastage occurs at all stages from harvesting to the consumer, calling for advanced techniques of food preservation. Wastage is mainly due to presence of moisture and microbial organisms present in food. Microbes can be killed or deactivated, and cross-contamination by microbes such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should be avoided. Moisture removal may not be feasible in all cases. Preservation methods include thermal, electrical, chemical and radiation techniques. Here, we review the advanced food preservation techniques, with focus on fruits, vegetables, beverages and spices. We emphasize electrothermal, freezing and pulse electric field methods because they allow both pathogen reduction and improvement of nutritional and physicochemical properties. Ultrasound technology and ozone treatment are suitable to preserve heat sensitive foods. Finally, nanotechnology in food preservation is discussed.

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Food preservation techniques and nanotechnology for increased shelf life of fruits, vegetables, beverages and spices: a review.

The improving effects of cold plasma on multi-scale structure, physicochemical and digestive properties of dry heated red adzuki bean starch.

Structure and physicochemical properties of native starch and resistant starch in Chinese yam (Dioscorea opposita Thunb.).

Normal and waxy wheat starches were subjected to dry-heat treatment for physical modification. The influence of repeated (RDH) versus continuous dry-heating (CDH) on the performance of wheat starch with different amylose content was investigated. Native waxy starch illustrated greater crystallinity, solubility, swelling power, peak viscosity and thermal properties than normal wheat starch. The dry-heating could not transform the crystalline structure, wheat starches remained A-type. Additionally, dry-heated samples showed lower transition temperatures and pasting properties, but higher crystallinity and solubility. Dry-heating increased gelatinization enthalpy in normal wheat starch, but reduced this value in waxy ones. Furthermore, RDH can highly influence starch characteristics due to the cooling procedure compared to CDH under the same duration. The differences between RDH and CDH starches were expected to be suitable for varied food and non-food industries.

Tang Wei

Papers

Modification of structural, physicochemical and digestive properties of normal maize starch by thermal treatment.