Kelly Alan L, Lamichhane Prabin
Department of Food Chemistry and Technology, Teagasc Food Research Center, Fermoy, Cork, Ireland.
School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2025;65(3):527-550. doi: 10.1080/10408398.2023.2277357. Epub 2023 Nov 16.
Temperature-mediated preservation techniques offer a simple, scalable, effective, and fairly efficient method of long-term storage of food products. In order to ensure the uninterrupted availability of cheese across the globe, a critical understanding of its techno-functional properties as affected by freezing and frozen storage is essential. Detailed studies of temperature-mediated molecular dynamics are available for relatively simpler and homogeneous systems like pure water, proteins, and carbohydrates. However, for heterogeneous systems like cheese, inter-component interactions at sub-zero temperatures have not been extensively covered. Ice crystallization during freezing causes dehydration of caseins and the formation of concentration gradients within the cheese matrix, causing undesirable changes in texture-functional attributes, but findings vary due to experimental conditions. A suitable combination of sample size, freezing rate, aging, and tempering can extend the shelf life of high- and low-moisture Mozzarella cheese. However, limited studies on other cheeses suggest that effects and suitability differ by cheese type, in most cases adversely affecting texture and functional attributes. This review presents an overview of the understanding of the effects of refrigeration, freezing techniques, and frozen storage on structural components of cheese, most prominently Mozzarella cheese, and the corresponding impact on microstructure and functionality. Also included are the mechanism of ice formation and relevant mathematical models for estimation of the thermophysical properties of cheese to assist in designing optimized schemes for their frozen storage. The review also highlights the lack of unanimity in critical understanding concerning the effect of freezing on the long-term storage of Mozzarella cheese with respect to its functionality.
温度介导的保鲜技术提供了一种简单、可扩展、有效且相当高效的食品长期储存方法。为了确保全球范围内奶酪的持续供应，深入了解冷冻和冷冻储存对其技术功能特性的影响至关重要。对于相对简单且均匀的系统，如纯水、蛋白质和碳水化合物，已有关于温度介导分子动力学的详细研究。然而，对于像奶酪这样的异质系统，零下温度下各组分间的相互作用尚未得到广泛研究。冷冻过程中的冰晶形成会导致酪蛋白脱水，并在奶酪基质内形成浓度梯度，从而导致质地功能特性出现不良变化，但由于实验条件不同，研究结果也有所差异。合适的样品大小、冷冻速率、陈化和回火组合可以延长高水分和低水分马苏里拉奶酪的保质期。然而，对其他奶酪的有限研究表明，不同奶酪类型的影响和适用性存在差异，在大多数情况下会对质地和功能特性产生不利影响。本综述概述了对冷藏、冷冻技术和冷冻储存对奶酪结构成分（最显著的是马苏里拉奶酪）的影响的理解，以及对微观结构和功能的相应影响。还包括冰形成的机制以及用于估计奶酪热物理性质的相关数学模型，以协助设计其冷冻储存的优化方案。该综述还强调了在关于冷冻对马苏里拉奶酪长期储存功能的影响的关键理解上缺乏一致性。
