Ohmic heating or Joule heating has immense potential for achieving rapid and uniform heating in foods, providing microbiologically safe and high quality foods. This review discusses the technology behind ohmic heating, the current applications and thermal modeling of the process. The success of ohmic heating depends on the rate of heat generation in the system, the electrical conductivity of the food, electrical field strength, residence time and the method by which the food flows through the system. Ohmic heating is appropriate for processing of particulate and protein rich foods. A vast amount of work is still necessary to understand food properties in order to refine system design and maximize performance of this technology in the field of packaged foods and space food product development. Various economic studies will also play an important role in understanding the overall cost and viability of commercial application of this technology in food processing. Some of the demerits of the technology are also discussed.

Moisture sorption isotherms of freeze dried whey-grape beverage powder were determined at 20, 30 and 40°C. A gravimetric static method was used under 0.11-0.85 water activity range and the sorption isotherms were found to be Type II. Various mathematical models were fitted to experimental data and it was found that Peleg model suits best in describing the equilibrium moisture content-equilibrium relative humidity relationships of instant whey-grape beverage mix over the range of temperatures studied. The net isosteric heat of sorption varied between 5.22 and 1.12 KJ/mol at moisture level varying between 1 and 9 % db. At moisture content below 1 % (db) the isosteric heat of sorption increased sharply for freeze dried whey-grape beverage powder and value of 49.08 KJ/mol was estimated.

The moisture sorption behaviour of curd (Indian yogurt) powder was studied at 20, 30, 40 and 50°C for water activity ranging from 0.07 to 0.85. GAB, BET, Henderson, Halsey, Chung & Pfost, Smith, Oswin and Peleg models were applied to analyse the data. Estimated parameters and fitting ability for sorption models were evaluated. The GAB model showed the best fit to the sorption data of curd powder at 20, 30 and 40°C, and the Peleg model fitted well at 50°C.

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