End-over-end thermal processing of canned vegetables: Effect on texture and color

Abstract

Fresh vegetables (potato, carrot and green bean) were cut into regular shapes, blanched, vacuum-sealed in 307 × 409 cans and subjected to end-over-end rotation in a steam/air retort (retort temperatures: 110, 120 and 130°C; rotation speeds; 0, 10 and 20 rpm). Heating times were adjusted to give approximately the same process lethality ( F o = 10 min). Color and texture values of the vegetables were evaluated both before and after processing. Processing under both higher temperatures and higher rotation speeds resulted in better retention ( p<0·01) of vegetable texture, while only temperature (the higher the better) had a desirable effect on color. The results suggest that high-temperature rotational processing as compared to its static counterpart would improve external quality attributes of processed vegetables.