The Application of Essential Oil Vapors at the End of Vacuum Cooling of Fresh Culinary Herbs Promotes Aromatic Recovery.

Ginés Benito Martínez-Hernández,Fulgencio Marín-Iniesta,Antonio López-Gómez,Amaury Taboada-Rodríguez,Alberto Garre

doi:10.3390/foods10030498

Ginés Benito Martínez-Hernández, Fulgencio Marín-Iniesta + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10030498

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Abstract

Aroma is an important quality parameter of fresh culinary herbs that may be highly affected after postharvest treatments. The innovative technology of vapor essential oil (EO) application under vacuum conditions may recover aroma lost during the postharvest processing of plant products like aromatic herbs. Hence, this study assessed the aroma recovery effect of vapor EOs applied during vacuum cooling on curly parsley and dill. The volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profiles of these aromatic herbs were studied by static headspace solid-phase microextraction (SPME), and the VOCs sorption kinetics onto the SPME stir-bar coating were modeled by the Baranyi model. At the pilot plant scale, the total VOCs contents of parsley and dill (whose extractability was increased by 10–20% after a single vacuum process) were enhanced by 4.5- and 2-fold, respectively, when vapor EOs were applied. In particular, 1,3,8-p-menthatriene and carvone (parsley) increased by 18.7- and 7.3-fold, respectively, while dill ether (the characteristic VOC of dill) augmented by 2.4-fold after vapor EOs were applied under vacuum conditions. The aroma recovery of culinary herbs was successfully validated at an industrial level in an installation developed by our group to apply vapor EOs within a vacuum cooling system, reaching total VOC recoveries of 4.9- and 2.3-fold in parsley and dill, respectively.

Highlights

Humanity has used aromatic herbs since ancient times for culinary operations to enhance food taste, alongside their well-known high contents of health-promoting compounds [1,2]
Thereby, in previous scientific studies from group, we studied that active packaging with essential oil (EO) can extend the product shelf life by reducing product weight loss, softening, color loss, etc. in several products like culinary herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, mandarins and grapes [11,12,13]
This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the vapor EO treatment on the volatile profile of aromatic herbs to evaluate a possible recovery of the typical aroma profile of aromatic herbs after vacuum cooling

Summary

Introduction

Humanity has used aromatic herbs since ancient times for culinary operations to enhance food taste, alongside their well-known high contents of health-promoting compounds [1,2]. Metabolic processes during the postharvest life of these plant products lead to product quality loss [3]. In this sense, postharvest techniques are needed to extend the product shelf life [4]. Conventional sanitizing washing treatments (e.g., NaOCl) must be avoided in aromatic herbs since these physical operations (washing, rinsing and drying) may highly damage the plant organ, leading to accelerated senescence. Innovative postharvest techniques that do not induce damages to sensitive products like aromatic herbs, while still meeting the consumer interests, are needed: natural food products free from additives obtained with environmental-friendly processing conditions

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