Osmotic Dehydration of Tropical Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

Because of the microstructural complexity of plant tissue, osmotic dehydration cannot simply be explained as a pure osmotic process in which cell membranes act as a semipermeable barrier allowing water to pass through. Instead, osmotic dehydration is considered a process in which many simultaneous mechanisms, acting at different levels, are responsible for mass transport. Different compositional and structural profiles are induced in fruits and vegetables, depending on process variables and the tissue microstructure. Compositional-structural profiles that are developed with gas-liquid exchanges in the tissue during osmotic process have a significant impact on physical (optical), textural and chemical properties (e.g., flavour profile) of the final product, which is in part influenced by the differences in the number of cells that are altered and unaltered during the treatment. This review focuses on changes in the physical, chemical, and cellular structure of fruits and vegetables, some technologies commonly applied to increase mass transfer during osmotic dehydration (OD), potentials and industrial applications of OD, and the challenges of osmo-drying technology.

Keywords:

• chemical changes
• fruits and vegetables
• osmotic dehydration
• physical changes
• pretreatment