Non-Thermal Processing Technologies for the Meat, Fish, and Poultry Industries

Book excerpt: Processed products obtained from meat, fish, and poultry play a predominant role ascribed to their nutritional profile and sensory characteristics. Usually, these products are highly perishable, and, therefore, the food industry used traditional thermal methods of heat processing in order to extend the stability of the product to the greatest extent. But this traditional method has several disadvantages including undesirable changes in organoleptic characteristics, denaturation of the good quality of animal proteins, and degradation of several nutritional components. Non-Thermal Processing Technologies for the Meat, Fish, and Poultry Industries addresses stability enhancement of meat-, fish-, and poultry-processed products by implementing a non-thermal approach. Currently, there are several innovative non-thermal processing techniques available that can be adopted for enhancing the safety quality of these foods. This book presents the various non-thermal processing techniques that can be successfully applied to this processing industry, including high-pressure processing, ultrasound, irradiation, and pulse electric fields. It explains how these processes can signifantly minimize quality changes without posing any threat to the consumer. These techniques can be replaced for traditional thermal processing techniques viz. roasting, frying, boiling, and grilling. This book benefits food scientists, food process engineers, academicians, students, and food industrial professionals by providing in-depth knowledge of non-thermal processing of foods for meat, fish, and poultry product quality retention as well as for efficient consumer acceptability. The text contains current and emerging trends in the use of non-thermal processing techniques for its application in these industries.