Impact of conventional sterilization and ohmic heating on the amino acid profile in vegetable baby foods

Abstract

Loss of nutrients during processing of baby foods should be minimized to maintain the nutritional quality and therefore to support a satisfactory nutritional status in infants. The present study aimed to evaluate the advantages of the ohmic heating versus conventional retort sterilization on the maintenance of the amino acid content and protein quality of sterilized vegetable baby foods. Results revealed that total protein content was not affected after both sterilization methods. However, after retort sterilization the content of total essential and nonessential amino acids significantly decreased in 35% and 9%, respectively, thus decreasing the quality protein. Contrarily, ohmic heating did not have effect on the total amino acid content and, therefore, this alternative process did not modify the protein quality of the sample. In conclusion, ohmic treatment may be successfully applied as an alternative method to conventional sterilization to maintain the nutritional quality of protein in vegetable baby foods. Industrial relevance: Ohmic heating is an emerging technology which applies an electric current to the food, promoting uniform and rapid heating in the product. This fact facilitates the destruction of microorganisms in a shorter period of time and reduces the possible losses of labile nutrients caused with the conventional thermal treatments such as pasteurization or sterilization. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of conventional retort sterilization and alternative sterilization by ohmic heating on the amino acid content and protein quality of vegetable baby foods. These findings could be used for the baby food industries in order to improve nutritional quality of these products after heating processes.

Research on the relationship between sensory profile and physicochemical properties of paocai, a Chinese fermented vegetable

“…The amino acid content was determined according to Mesías et al (). Briefly, 1.0 g of sample was grounded in liquid nitrogen and extracted with 6 ml of prerefrigerated 6% sulfosalicylic acid for three times.…”

Electric field effects on proteins – Novel perspectives on food and potential health implications

“…For other sensitive foods such as baby food and infant formulae, OH can also bring processing advantages. A study conducted on vegetable baby purees has shown that OH allowed to preserve protein quality, when compared to the conventional method (Mesías, Wagner, George, & Morales, 2016). During ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment of liquid infant formula by OH and steam injection, no changes in protein quality were found, however promising results were observed in other chemical markers of OH treated samples -i.e.…”

Evaluation of nonthermal effects of electricity on inactivation kinetics of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli during ohmic heating of infant formula

“…This technology consists of passing an alternating electric current (a moderate electric field, MEF) through a food with the main purpose of warming it by internal power generation. The temperature rise inside the food promotes inactivation of microorganisms and enzymes in short periods, similar to high‐temperature short‐time (HTST) treatments (Lee et al, ; Mesías et al, ).…”

“…However, this thermal treatment can negatively affect milk nutritional quality. Due to this adverse effect, emerging technologies have been researched to replace the traditional thermal processing (Christen et al, 2013;Mesías, Wagner, George, & Morales, 2016;Vieira, Soares, Pimenta, Abranches, & Moreira, 2011).…”

“…Among alternative methods of pasteurization, ohmic heating (OH) stands out because it promotes rapid and uniform heating, resulting in less thermal damage to heat-sensitive compounds (Kim & Kang, 2015b;Lee, Sagong, Ryu, & Kang, 2012;Mesías et al, 2016;Moro & Arslanoglu, 2012). This technology consists of passing an alternating electric current (a moderate electric field, MEF) through a food with the main purpose of warming it by internal power generation.…”