Laboratorio de Fitoquímica y Alimentos Saludables (LabFAS), Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología de Alimentos, CEBAS-CSIC, Campus de Espinardo 25, 30100 Murcia, Spain.
Calidad y Evaluación de Riesgos en Alimentos, Unidad Asociada CSIC -UPCT.
Food Sci Technol Int. 2023 Jul;29(5):445-479. doi: 10.1177/10820132221094724. Epub 2022 Apr 19.
Vegetables and fruits contain a variety of bioactive nutrients and non-nutrients that are associated with health promotion. Consumers currently demand foods with high contents of healthy compounds, as well as preserved natural taste and flavour, minimally processed without using artificial additives. Processing alternatives to be applied on plant-based foodstuffs to obtain beverages are mainly referred to as classical thermal treatments that although are effective treatments to ensure safety and extended shelf-life, also cause undesirable changes in the sensory profiles and phytochemical properties of beverages, thus affecting the overall quality and acceptance by consumers. As a result of these limitations, new non-thermal technologies have been developed for plant-based foods/beverages to enhance the overall quality of these products regarding microbiological safety, sensory traits, and content of bioactive nutrients and non-nutrients during the shelf-life of the product, thus allowing to obtain enhanced health-promoting beverages. Accordingly, the present article attempts to review critically the principal benefits and downsides of the main non-thermal processing alternatives (High hydrostatic pressure, pulsed electric fields, ultraviolet light, and ultrasound) to set up sound comparisons with conventional thermal treatments, providing a vision about their practical application that allows identifying the best choice for the sectoral industry in non-alcoholic fruit and vegetable-based beverages.
蔬菜和水果含有多种与促进健康相关的生物活性营养素和非营养素。消费者目前要求食品含有高含量的健康化合物，同时保持天然的味道和风味，尽量减少加工，不使用人工添加剂。应用于植物性食品以获得饮料的加工替代品主要是指经典的热处理，虽然这些处理方法对于确保安全性和延长保质期非常有效，但也会导致饮料感官特性和植物化学特性的不良变化，从而影响产品的整体质量和消费者的接受度。由于这些限制，已经为植物性食品/饮料开发了新的非热技术，以提高这些产品的整体质量，在产品保质期内确保微生物安全性、感官特性以及生物活性营养素和非营养素的含量，从而获得具有促进健康作用的饮料。因此，本文试图批判性地回顾主要非热加工替代品（高静压、脉冲电场、紫外线和超声波）的主要优点和缺点，并与传统热处理进行合理比较，为它们的实际应用提供了一个视角，从而可以为非酒精性果蔬基饮料行业确定最佳选择。
