Textural changes in vegetables during thermal processing. I. A descriptive method to segregate effects of process treatments

Criteria for assessing the effect of processing treatments on the texture of processed foods were developed. Five parameters were defined, relating the hardening or softening of a food material and allowing for the comparison between different processing procedures. In order to determine the usefulness of this method, the parameters were applied to experimental data reported in literature for thermal processing of fruits and vegetables. Three parameters were defined for identifying the effect of a given preprocessing treatment on the raw material texture, the effect of the preprocessing treatment on the sensitivity of the vegetable tissue to the thermal processing and the overall effect. the two remaining parameters were used to describe additional information regarding the process kinetics, that is, to assess the effect of time and temperature on the rate of softening/hardening.