Pulsed electric fields effects on health-related compounds and antioxidant capacity of tomato juice

Abstract

A significant number of compounds found in plant-based foods such as vitamins, phenolic compounds and carotenoids exhibit health promoting biological functions. It is known that thermal treatment is effective in pasteurizing fruits and vegetable derivatives but the concentration and biological activity of most healthrelated compounds are dramatically reduced as thermal treatment intensity increases. Thus, a number of alternative technologies allowing low temperature processing such as pulsed electric field treatment (PEF) have emerged and many research efforts have been put towards their development and optimization. Exploratory studies have suggested that PEF have the ability to inactivate microorganisms and enzymes, while avoiding degradation of heat-labile components and, consequently, preserving the nutritional quality of the fresh-like food products. Hence, this processing technology could help not only to obtain safe and stable food products, but also to produce food commodities with high antioxidant properties. The aim of this review is to illustrate the ability of PEF technology as a non-thermal technology for keeping/improving health-related compounds and antioxidant capacity in tomato juices.