Pulsed Electric Fields Pretreatments for the Cooking of Foods

Abstract

Development of the concept of electroporation opened new perspectives for promising applications in food technology. Treatment of foods with pulsed electric fields (PEFs) allows facilitation of different food transformation operations (extraction, expression, osmotic treatment, drying, and freezing) with minimal energy consumptions and better retention of flavor, color, and preservation of nutritional properties of foods. This work shortly reviews the effects of PEF on the biological cells and food products and gives the examples of PEF-assisted techniques. The PEF protocol, power consumption, and existing small- and large-scale electroporation systems are presented. Some examples of PEF-assisted processing of meat, fish, and fat frying are discussed. The main principles of PEF-assisted cooking and kitchen operations are also discussed. The variants of PEF-assisted non-thermal cooker and PEF/ohmic thermal cooker are presented. It is speculated that PEF allows more homogeneous treatment of foods as compared to the conventional methods of thermal cooking. The PEF-assisted cooking can be faster and more effective for nutrient retention and sensory qualities of foods. Moreover, the PEF treatment can be used for producing the types of the products of fresh/natural quality and new tastes. The recent examples of PEF-assisted processing of meat and fish, assistance of frying, and commercial-scale processing are also presented and discussed.