Minimally processed carrots and snap beans

Author(s)

Wigberto Antonio Spagnol

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Agricola
• Defense date: 2005-03-18

Examining board members

Kil Jin Park; Benedito Carlos Benedetti; Sylvio Luís Honório; Jose Fernando Durigan; Lenice Magali do Nascimento

• Advisor: Jose Maria Monteiro Sigrist; Kil Jin Park

Abstract

Although the consumers associate fruits and vegetables to a healthy diet, they are more demanding about their quality and facility, on the other hand. The minimally processed vegetables need some technology to satisfy the consumer's expectations and in order to avoid the loss of the quality caused by many different operations concerned to minimally processing food. This work has the purpose to characterize the temperature effects, to modify the atmosphere by using plastic films and active atmospheres with high concentration of CO2 and O2. It aims to get safety, high quality and the convenience in consuming minimally processed products.The combination of preservation factors applied to minimal processing of foods concept involves a wider focus of quality preservation as prevention of the microorganisms deterioration growth and toxics microorganisms: and also for the conservation of other qualities (color, flavour, odor, texture). The minimally processing carrots and snap beans submitted to an open experimental system with the continuous air flux, an increase of 10ºC in the temperature has caused an increase of the respiration rate from 2 to 3 times in carrots and from 4 to 5 times on snap beans, being around 50% higher to snap beans harvested in the summer. The chilling injury symptoms on the snap beans were verified at the temperature of 1ºC. It is possible to maintain then at this temperature during only four days. It was observed a difference of 3 cycles log UFC.g-1 in the growth lag of deterioration microorganisms at 1ºC when compared to 11ºC, for the plastic films packaged carrots. The application of high concentration on the MP carrots and snap beans considering an experimental open system, with mixture flux of continuous gases, caused a decrease of psicotrofic and mesofile aerobic bacteria around 2 cycles log during 10 days of storage either carrots at 11ºC or snap beans at 5ºC. The high concentration of CO2 (30kPa) in synergy with high level of O2 (50 to 60 kPa) presented bigger efficiency in inhibition of the bacteria growth. The presence of high concentration of O2 also CO2 also avoided the occurrence of enzymatic browning on the snap beans, besides the loss of the green coloration during the storage period. The high concentration of O2 and CO2 didn¿t caused statistics alteration on C vitamin when compared to the air (AU)