Quality Control in Fruit and Vegetable Processing: Methods and Strategies (Innovations in Agricultural & Biological Engineering)

Quality Control in Fruit and Vegetable Processing: Methods and Strategies illustrates the applications of various nonthermal technologies for improving the quality and safety of fruits and vegetables, such as microwave, ultrasound, gamma irradiation, pulsed light, and hurdle technology. The volume also looks at various strategies (osmotic dehydration, ultrasound- and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration, nanoemulsions, and engineered nanomaterials) for the preservation of fresh produce. It emphasizes various nondestructive techniques that have been widely used for the quality assessment of fruits and vegetables during storage, including image analysis, x-ray tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nonmagnetic resonance imaging (NMR), color vision system, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and computerized tomography (CT). Applications of other nondestructive mechanical (such as electronic tongue and nose technology) and dynamic methods (acoustic) for food quality and safety evaluation have also been included. The book concludes with an overview of the potential use of fruit and vegetable waste as a viable feedstock for bioenergy and for the treatment of wastewater.

Key features:

• Promotes the utilization of new and novel nonthermal technologies for the preservation of fruits and vegetables
• Provide up-to-date information on the applications of nonthermal technologies for the quality and safety of fresh produce during storage
• Highlights different preservation strategies for improving the quality of fresh produce
• Explores the use of nondestructive quality assessment methods such as X-ray, MRI, NMR, etc.
• Discusses the potential industrial use of fruit and vegetable waste as a viable feedstock for bioenergy and for the treatment of industrial wastewater

This volume will provide food for thought for those in the food industry on new methods and technology for effective quality control in fruit and vegetable processing.

Megh R. Goyal, PhD, PE, is a Retired Professor in Agricultural and Biomedical Engineering from the General Engineering Department in the College of Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayaguez Campus. He has worked as a Soil Conservation Inspector and as a Research Assistant at Haryana Agricultural University and Ohio State University. He was the first agricultural engineer to receive the professional license in Agricultural Engineering from the College of Engineers and Surveyors of Puerto Rico.

Faizan Ahmad, MTech, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology in the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences at Aligarh Muslim University, in Uttar Pradesh, India. He has more than seven years of teaching and research experience. His major area of research includes food preservation, extraction of bioactive compounds from agricultural waste, food processing, food engineering, etc. Presently he is working in food preservation using ultrasound as a pre-treatment, as well as in quality assessment of fruits and vegetables during storage and drying. Recently he designed a fully automatic vacuum dryer with a data recorder for effective and economic drying of fruits and vegetables, and the same has been published by the patent office of the Government of India. He has published more than 10 research papers in peer-reviewed international and national journals and more than seven book chapters with various publishers, such as Elsevier, Springer, CRC Press. etc. He has presented his work at several international and national conferences and has attended more than 35 seminars, conferences, workshops, short-term courses, and faculty development program. He has successfully guided five MTech students for their dissertation work and is presently supervising one more. He has also delivered lectures as a resource person at the Institute of Food Technology, Budelkhand University, Jhansi, India. He is a life member of the Indian Society of Technical Education (ISTE). He received his BTech degree in Chemical Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and his MTech degree in Chemical Engineering (Process Modeling and Simulation) from Department of Chemical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.