Principles, developments and applications of computer vision for external quality inspection of fruits and vegetables: A review

Fruits and vegetables quality evaluation using computer vision: A review

Banana (Musaceae) is one of the world’s most important fruit crops that is widely cultivated in tropical countries for its valuable applications in food industry. Its enormous by-products are an excellent source of highly valuable raw materials for other industries by recycling agricultural waste. This prevents an ultimate loss of huge amount of untapped biomass and environmental issues. This review discusses extensively the breakthrough in the utilization of banana by-products such as peels, leaves, pseudostem, stalk and inflorescence in various food and non-food applications serving as thickening agent, coloring and flavor, alternative source for macro and micronutrients, nutraceuticals, livestock feed, natural fibers, and sources of natural bioactive compounds and bio-fertilizers. Future prospects and challenges are the important key factors discussed in association to the sustainability and feasibility of utilizing these by-products. It is important that all available by-products be turned into highly commercial outputs in order to sustain this renewable resource and provide additional income to small scale farming industries without compromising its quality and safety in competing with other commercial products.

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Banana by-products: an under-utilized renewable food biomass with great potential.

Background Microwave processing techniques have been extensively used in the food industry due to its significant reduction in cooking time and energy consumption. Microwave processing technologies such as microwave drying, heating and sterilizing play a significant role in food quality and safety control. However, few reviews have been published in recent years summarizing the latest developments in the application of microwave technology in the food industry. Scope and approach This review focuses on recent applications of microwave processing technologies including microwave drying, heating, and sterilizing in fruit (banana, apple, olive, sour cherries, pomegranate arils, blueberries, kiwifruit, aronia, strawberry, and grape tomato), vegetables (potato, bamboo shoot, purslane leaves, onion, green bean, pumpkin, eggplant, edamame, sea tangle, garlic, kale, red cabbage, tomato, cassava, lentils, chickpea, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, jalapeno peppers, and coriander foliage), and meat products (sardine fish, restructured silver carp slices, sea cucumber, beef semitendinosus muscle, bovine supraspinatus muscle, camel longissimus dorsi muscle, foal meat, bovine gluteus medium muscle, chicken steak, mature cows semimembranosus and semitendinosus muscles, kavurma (a ready-to-eat meat product), salmon, cod, drumettes, and beef slices), changes in product quality as affected with microwave processing are discussed in details, and future directions of research are presented. Key findings and conclusions Microwave drying has the advantages of low energy consumption and high efficiency as compared to conventional drying, while producing more porous structure of foods. Microwave drying usually combines with other conventional drying to enhance the quality of a food product. Compared with the traditional method, microwave heating or cooking can generally retain higher levels of bioactive components, antioxidant activity and attractive color of vegetables, while microwave cooking with water can cause a serious drop in nutrients due to leaching and thermal liability. Microwave sterilization has the capacity to completely inactivate microorganisms and effectively destroy enzyme activity, and less effect on antioxidant activity, texture and color of food products compared with conventional pasteurization.

Microwave processing techniques and their recent applications in the food industry

Fresh foods like vegetables, fruits, and aquatic products have high water activity and they are highly heat-sensitive and easily degradable. Dehydration is one of the most common methods used to improve food shelf-life. However, drying methods used for food dehydration must not only be efficient and economic but also yield high-quality products based on flavor, nutrients, color, rehydration, uniformity, appearance, and texture. This paper reviews some new drying technologies developed for dehydration of vegetables, fruits, and aquatic products. These include: infrared drying, microwave drying, radio frequency drying, electrohydrodynamic drying, etc., as well as hybrid drying methods combining two or more different drying techniques. A comprehensive review of recent developments in high-quality drying of vegetables, fruits and aquatic products is presented and recommendations are made for future research.

Recent Developments in High-quality Drying of Vegetables, Fruits and Aquatic Products

Green banana flour (GBF), as a functional ingredient, was used to partially substitute cassava starch in two types of snacks, viz. fish cracker (FC) and cassava cracker (CC). It is observed that use of GBF increased the nutritional value including enhancement of dietary fiber, essential minerals, polyphenol content, antioxidant capacity and decreased oil content to varying degrees depending on the substitution level in these two crackers. However, its use compromised the textural properties in terms of the linear expansion ratio, crispness, bulk density, porosity and color. Sensory evaluation showed that the products with not more than 40 g substitution level by GBF from 100 g cassava starch in CC and not more than 15 g in FC were acceptable by the panelists.

Influence of green banana flour substitution for cassava starch on the nutrition, color, texture and sensory quality in two types of snacks

Production of silver carp bone powder using superfine grinding technology: Suitable production parameters and its properties

Fresh aquatic products are rich in nutritional compounds and are an important source of good protein for humans. Dehydration processing technologies of aquatic products used in practice are a mix of old and new technologies. With the rapid development of drying technologies and steadily increasing living standards, drying processing techniques as well as types of products produced have changed fundamentally. Two broad types of dried aquatic products are commercially available on a large scale: traditional products and snack foods. In this article, the development of dried aquatic product processing technologies will be expounded along with an overview of the necessary quality attributes and control strategies to produce high-quality dried products of aquatic origin.

Trends in Processing Technologies for Dried Aquatic Products

Restructured fish slices from silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) were dried using air drying (AD), freeze drying (FD), and vacuum drying (VD) (4 mm thickness) and microwave-vacuum drying (MVD) (2, 4, 6, and 8 mm thickness). Quality attributes of the dried products were compared in terms of their rehydrated characteristics, change in dimensions, color, texture, sensory values before and after rehydration, and change in volatile compounds. AD, FD, and VD resulted in the different levels of shrinkage while MVD caused some expansion in diameter and thickness in the 4-, 6-, and 8-mm-thickness samples. Rehydration caused significant swelling in AD, FD, and VD products (p 0.05). Drying methods significantly affected the color and texture of both dried and rehydrated products (p 0.05). MVD products rehydrated faster and had higher rehydration ratio as well as lower water hold capacity, hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, and chewiness than others. In sensory evaluation, MVD products alone exhibited acceptable crispness and favorable odor. The rehydrated dried products were acceptable by the sensory panelists and were preferred in the order: FD, VD, AD, MVD. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed that drying significantly decreased the n-alkanals and 1-octen-3-ol content (p < 0.05) and produced new aldehydes including 2-methyl-propanal, 3-methyl-butanal, and furfural in MVD products. This study demonstrated that drying restructured fish meat can be potentially used to develop the new dried fish products using optimal drying conditions.

Quality Changes of Dehydrated Restructured Fish Product from Silver Carp ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix ) as Affected by Drying Methods

Drying is one of the most common methods for processing and preserving squids. A novel forced convective dryer based on infrared heating was developed with an online temperature control. By setting the drying medium temperature of 50°C, we studied the effects of infrared wavelength and air velocity on drying characteristics of the shredded squid and qualities of dried squid products. We also compared it with the conventional hot-air drying (HAD) and advanced microwave vacuum drying (MVD). The infrared heating rate increase was faster than that of HAD. The heating and drying at the wavelength of 2.5–3.0 µm were more effective than those at the infrared wavelength of 5.0–6.0 µm. Specific energy consumption linearly increased with the air velocity. Microstructure observation showed that the infrared-dried rehydrated sample displayed a muscle fiber structure similar to the fresh sample. The infrared-dried squids had less drying shrinkage, brighter color, and better rehydration capacity than HAD products. Thei...

Yingqiang Wang

Papers

Influence of green banana flour substitution for cassava starch on the nutrition, color, texture and sensory quality in two types of snacks

Production of silver carp bone powder using superfine grinding technology: Suitable production parameters and its properties

Trends in Processing Technologies for Dried Aquatic Products

Quality Changes of Dehydrated Restructured Fish Product from Silver Carp ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix ) as Affected by Drying Methods

Drying and Quality Characteristics of Shredded Squid in an Infrared-Assisted Convective Dryer