Rheology of food puree

 

 

Elham Azarpazooh¹, Neda Maftoon Azad² and Hosahalli S Ramaswamy¹

¹Department of Food Science, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Ste Anne de Bellevue, QC, Canada

²Department of Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Research and Education Organization, Zarghan, Fars, Iran

 

 

 

Abstract

Purpose of review: Data on rheological properties of food products are essential for product development and design,  as well as evaluation of process equipment such as pumps, piping, heat exchangers, evaporators, sterilisers and mixers. Food puree rheology is important not only for optimising or designing their handling and thermal processing equipment, but also with respect to the quality of the formulated product. This review details applications of promising models and techniques used in evaluating food puree rheology.

Main finding: Interrelationships in rheological approaches in plant physiology, food processing and agricultural engineering is of considerable interest. Oscillatory rheology has been getting major attention and is often employed to investigate gelling or viscoelastic behaviour of food systems as it is well recognised that one can differentiate solid-like from liquid-like behaviour based on the frequency dependence of the storage and loss modulus of the system.

Directions for future research: Future research should focus on more accurate online instrumental techniques to replace traditional consistometers, which are inherently unreliable. Modelling of rheological parameters of food purees as a function of process parameters is also important.

 

Keywords: food puree; rheological properties; non-Newtonian fluids; viscoelastic properties; power law model

 

Stewart Postharvest Review 2007, 6:16

Published online 01 December 2007

doi: 10.2212/spr.2007.6.16