FRESHERIZED FOODS: Success Under Pressure

摘要

The marriage of time and pressure can produce beautiful things. Pure carbon turns to diamonds. Vibrating air particles in the form of variable-speed compressed wavelengths become music to our ears. And pressurized water is helping to make a number offood and beverage products both safer and tastier. Of course, unlike the eons-old pure physics that create gems or sound, the physics of producing safer high-quality foods through high hydrostatic pressure is based on scientific knowledge that is a mere100 years old—and a technology that has only been commercially available to the food industry for two decades. In fact, the growth rate of food companies adopting high pressure processing (HPP) shows a steady upward trend in just the last 10 years. Onefactor driving this growth is that HPP has emerged as a triple-threat technology: It inactivates harmful microbes in foods, preserves and enhances natural flavors, colors and other quality attributes, and extends product shelf life significantly—all without heat, chemicals or preservatives.