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

摘要

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.