Thermal Treatment

Thermal treatment is the process of heating the food products till the point the microbial load is eliminated. This avoids alterations produced in the food by non-pathogenic microorganisms. This process destroys threats to the consumer’s health, deactivates any enzyme actions, and preserves the quality of the food.

Thermal Treatment encompasses a range of procedures, but the principal ones are pasteurization and sterilization, which are designed to destroy microbes, rather than scalding or cooking, They also achieve a reduction in microbial content, but whose principal objective is a variation in the structure of the food.

Pasteurization implies the destruction, by the application of heat, of all of those organisms in a vegetative state which would produce illness, or the destruction or reduction in the number of those organisms which would produce alterations in certain foods, such as high-acid foods (with a pH less than 4.6). In these foods, the only micro-organisms which develop are those which alter the food but which are not pathogenic to man.

Sterilization signifies the destruction of all viable organisms and their spores which could be cultivated using appropriate techniques using the application of temperatures over 100°C.

Roasting is a method that uses dry heat where hot air envelops the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least 150°C from an open flame, oven, or other heat sources. Roasting can enhance flavour through caramelization and Maillard browning on the surface of the food. Roasting uses indirect, diffused heat (as in an oven), and is suitable for slower cooking in larger, whole pieces, such as nuts.

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