Osmotic dehydration: More than water loss and solid gain.

The immersion of food in a hypertonic solution results in an osmotic dehydration process (OD) with the loss of water (WL) from the food to the solution and the gain of solids from the solution (SG) by the food. For this reason, OD is commonly used to produce semi-dehydrated or enriched foods by incorporation. Although the most of OD studies are focused on the WL and SG processes, many publications addresses the physicochemical and nutritional changes resulting from OD in the food matrix and in the osmotic solution. Such changes must be handled in order to improve the quality of the product. This work is a compilation of publications with this approach.