Radio Frequency Heating: Impact on Food Product Attributes

Preserving food to extend its shelf life, while ensuring its safety and quality parameters such as color, avor, texture, and nutritional value, is a central preoccupation of the food industry and consumer. Food preservation usually involves preventing the growth of bacteria or fungi (such as yeasts). These microorganisms may be present in the soil, on the food, in the water of the fresh food, in the air, on equipment, or on a work surface. Sufcient heat for a specied length of time kills microorganisms and insures a safe product. Among microorganism involved in serious food poisoning, there is the obligate anaerobe Clostridium botulinum, which produces an acute toxin called botulin toxin within the food, leading to severe illness or death. The spores of C. botulinum are not affected by boiling water at 212°F or 100°C. This organism produces no gas or obvious taste and remains undetected by taste or smell (Brin, 1997).