Foam-mat drying technique and some initial research results on local foods

Tóm tắt

Dehydration of foods is not simply a preservation technique in the present era, rather an important food processing operation which has many benefits in addition to enhancement of shelf life of foods. There are various methods of drying foods and most of them are unique in their own way. Present review is about Foam-mat drying technique for fruits and vegetables to develop good quality powders. Foam-mat drying is a new drying technique for foods which are highly heat sensitive and very sticky to dry. By using this drying technique product is dried in a very short time with minimum quality changes. Fruits and vegetables pastes were mixed with different foaming agents (egg albumin, soy protein, GMS etc.) and foam stabilizers (carboxymethyl cellulose etc.) in different concentration to introduce stable foams. Foams were dried in trays by application of hot air, microwave, freeze-drying and milled to develop free flowing powders. This is a simple technique and initially showed good results in drying liquid foods obtained from various local fruit and vegetable materials (jackfruit, red-fleshed dragon fruit, melon, etc.).