Advances in prepared dish processing using efficient physical fields: A review

Abstract

Prepared dishes are increasingly popular convenience food that can be eaten directly from hygienic packaging by heating. Physics field (PF) is food processing method built with physical processing technology, which has the characteristics of high efficiency and environmental safety. This review focuses on summarizing the application of PFs in prepared dishes, evaluating and comparing PFs through quality changes during processing and storage of prepared dishes. Currently, improving the quality and extending the shelf life of prepared dishes through thermal and non-thermal processing are the main modes of action of PFs. Most PFs show good potential in handing prepared dishes, but may also react poorly to some prepared dishes. In addition, the difficulty of precise control of processing conditions has led to research mostly at the laboratory stage, but as physical technology continues to break through, more PFs and multi-physical field will be promoted for commercial use in the future. This review contributes to a deeper understanding of the effect of PFs on prepared dishes, and provides theoretical reference and practical basis for future processing research in the development of various enhanced PFs.

Highlights

Prepared dishes are classified according to the degree of processing.

Physical fields are classified and described according to different physical methods.

The application of efficient physical fields to prepared dishes is described.

The application of efficient physical fields and its combination in food processing is prospected.

Keywords:

• Acoustic field
• electromagnetic field
• pressure field
• prepared dishes
• applications

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Contract No. 2018YFD0400801), the 111 Project (BP0719028), the Jiangsu Province (China) “Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Safety and Quality Control” Industry Development Program, the Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory Project of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (No. FMZ202003) and the National First-Class Discipline Program of Food Science and Technology (No. JUFSTR20180205), all of which enabled us to carry out this study.