Secagem de bases concentradas de origem vegetal

Abstract

Plant Based foods are present in what are the Trends dictated by the consumer behavior of the current situation. However, the food market is competitive and the year-round availability of some of these types of foods may be compromised by their seasonality. Drying can be a way to answer these questions, allowing for a constant offer in the market. Today there are multiple drying methods and choosing an ideal technology for a particular product seems to be a challenge. With regard to Plant Based foods, Freeze-Drying seems to be proposed as the most suitable drying method and the most commonly applied by the Food Industry. Thus, the present work aimed to study the impact of freeze-drying on the physicochemical and organoleptic characteristics of different Vegetal Concentrated Bases and to establish a comparative analysis between them. For this purpose, Oat, Spelt and Rice Bases were produced in a laboratory and industrial context and also with two distinct sugar profiles, Low and High Sugar. The different Bases were parameterized at physical-chemical (pH, 􀁱Brix, %TST and glucose) and organoleptic (color, flavor, texture and odor) steps, before and after freeze-drying, for a period of 8 weeks. In addition to the study of the Bases, applications were also carried out based on the Lyophilized Bases. It was concluded that the technology of freeze-drying proved to be effective in the drying of different bases, with the exception of the rice base. When rehydrated, the Bases presented parameters values close to the Original ones. It was also found that the Bases did not present considerable variations in the physicochemical and organoleptic parameters, which could it be due to the ideal conditions of conservation that the Bases were kept and led to this behavior of no degradation. WGOF Low Sugar Base had the best responses to Freeze Drying. The same similarity of parameters remains when Bases are used for application development. These conclusions lead to suppose that the Concentrated Bases can be commercialized in dry form, which entails multiple commercial advantages. However, freeze-drying is one of the most expensive drying methods, and it is important to know if there is no other methodology that is equally effective and does not involve such high costs. In this work, the analysis of economic viability went through a theoretical context and the establishment of contact with some market players that have other drying technologies, in order to study the response of some Bases to other techniques/methods. Here is an open door to a path that will need to be explored with more scientific studies.

Date of Award	24 Jan 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ana Maria Gomes (Supervisor) & Ana Cristina Freitas (Co-Supervisor)