Abstract
Non-uniform heating of RF energy is the main obstacle for its large-scale application in blanching. In this study, we proposed a new blanching method: steam (ST)-assisted radio frequency (RF) blanching of fresh-cut stem lettuce cuboids. The relative peroxidase (POD) activity, heating uniformity, and physicochemical properties of samples treated by steam-assisted RF blanching at different conditions (RF-50 °C + ST-2.5 min, RF-65 °C + ST-2 min, and RF-80 °C + ST-1 min) were evaluated in comparison with single RF heating and steam blanching. Both the temperature distribution images and the heating uniformity index indicated that steam-assisted RF blanching overcame the defect of local overheating of single blanching mode and achieved more uniform temperature distribution. Besides steam-assisted RF, blanched reduced the thermal damage to cells, which can be demonstrated by lower relative electrolyte leakage rate, thereby maintained better texture, color, and higher vitamin C retention at the same relative POD activity of 5%. Among the three steam-assisted RF blanching treatments, RF-80 °C + ST-1 min achieved optimum heating uniformity and quality of samples. This study suggested that steam-assisted RF blanching can be used as a potential blanching method to improve inactivation efficiency of enzyme and quality of fruits and vegetables.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank equipment engineers from instrument shared platform of Northwest A&F University for technical guidance.
Funding
This work was supported by the general program (Grant Nos. 31871819 and 31371854) of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Key Research Project of Shanxi Province (2017ZDXM-SF-104).
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Yao, Y., Zhang, B., Zhou, L. et al. Steam-assisted Radio Frequency Blanching to Improve Heating Uniformity and Quality Characteristics of Stem Lettuce Cuboids. Food Bioprocess Technol 15, 1907–1917 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-022-02856-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-022-02856-7