Nutritional Approaches and Health-Related Properties of Plant Foods Processed by High Pressure and Pulsed Electric Fields

Abstract

Consumers are more and more concerned about the nutritional and health-related characteristics of fruits and vegetables, as well as the safety of the food they eat. The processing of foods is becoming more sophisticated and diverse in response to the growing demand for quality foods. Consumers today expect food products to provide fresh-like appearance, convenience, variety, appropriate shelf-life and caloric content, reasonable cost, environmental soundness, high nutritional and functional quality. Nonthermal processing of fruit and vegetable has been revealed as a useful tool to extend their shelf-life and quality as well as to preserve their nutritional and functional characteristics. In the last ten years, there has been an increasing interest in nonthermal technologies as high pressure processing (HPP) and pulsed electric fields (PEF) to preserve fruit and vegetable products without the quality and nutritional damage caused by heat treatments. This review will contribute to inform many of the studies conducted to obtain a better understanding on the effects of some of these nonthermal processing technologies (high hydrostatic pressure and pulsed electric fields) applied to vegetable foods on their nutritional value and bioactive compounds related to health, including the results on micronutrient bioavailability studies and oxidative stress and inflammation biomarkers. These studies could contribute to select the most appropriate processing parameters to obtain safe, high-quality, nutritional, and functional vegetable food.

Keywords:

• nonthermal technologies
• plant foods
• bioactive compounds
• nutrition
• oxidative stress
• inflammation

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to give many thanks to the Madrid Autonomous Government for the projects 07G/0040/2000 and 07G/0053/2003; to the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for the projects 200670I081, AGL2006-12758-C02-01/ALI, AGL2006-12758-C02-02/ALI, AGL2006-27824-E/ALI, and Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme; FUN-C-FOOD CSD2007-00063); and to the European Union for the project STREP HighQ RTE, FP6-FOOD-023140. We would also like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for funding the contract of P. Elez-Martínez as a part of the Juan de la Cierva Program, and the postdoctoral fellowship of L. Plaza.

Notes

^aGazpacho antioxidant carotenoids = β-carotene + γ-carotene + lutein + lycopene + lycopene-epoxide.

^bPapaya antioxidant carotenoids = β-criptoxanthin + β-criptoxanthin-5,8-epoxide + β-carotene + lutein + zeaxanthin + lycopene + neo lycopene

^aValues are mean ± SD from three measurements of triplicate treatments.

¹Values are means ± SEM, n = 6.

*Different from men at that time, P < 0.05.

²There was not a significant sex x time interaction for vitamin C (P = 0.671), 8-epiPGF_2α (P = 0.641), uric acid (P = 0.746), CRP (P = 0.817) and PGE₂ (P = 0.959), based on repeated-measures ANOVA.

³Higher than baseline for men and women combined at both 7 and 14 d (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).

⁴Lower than baseline for men and women at d 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).

⁵ND, not determined.

⁶Lower than baseline for men and women at d 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on a Student's t test.

¹Values are means ± SEM, n = 6.

*Different from men at that time, P < 0.05.

²Higher than baseline for men and women at d 7 and 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).

³Lower than baseline for men and women at d 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).

⁴Lower than baseline for men at d 7 and 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).

⁵Lower than baseline for men and women at d 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on a Student's t test.

⁶ND, not determined.

⁷Lower than baseline for men and women at d 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on a Student's t test.

^a Values are means ± SEM (PEF, n = 6; FS, n = 6). There was no significant treatment x time interaction for vitamin C (P = 0.933), 8-epiPGF_2α (P = 0.260), and uric acid (P = 0.987), based on repeated-measures ANOVA.

*Vitamin C significantly higher than baseline for PEF and FS combined at both 7 and 14 days (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey test).

^†8-epiPGF_2α significantly lower than baseline for PEF at both 7 and 14 days and for FS at 14 (time effect), P < 0.05, based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey test).

^aValues presented as mean ± SEM (PEF, n = 6; FM, n = 6). There was no significant treatment × time interaction for vitamin C (P = 0.989), 8-epiPGF_2α (P = 0.523) and uric acid (P = 0.958), based on repeated measures ANOVA.

^bVitamin C significantly higher than baseline for PEF-treated and FM vegetable soups at both 7 and 14 days (time effect) (P < 0.05), based on repeated-meast ANOVA (Tukey's test).

^c8-epiPGF_2α significantly lower than baseline for PEF-treated vegetable soup at both 7 and 14 days, and for FM vegetable soup at 14 days (time effect) (P < 0 based on repeated-measures ANOVA (Tukey's test).