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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The impact of high-temperature, short-time thermal treatment on texture and weight loss of green asparagus

subject

description

The kinetics of the degradation of texture and loss of weight of green asparagus heated to between 100 and 130 °C was studied. The texture of the asparagus was evaluated with two types of cells fitted to a universal texturometer: one cell measured resistance to cutting with a wire and the other was a Kramer cell. The two methods enabled distinction between the different thermal treatments, although the Kramer cell gave information about the behaviour of parts of the spear further away from the tip. The thermally induced degradation of the texture and loss of weight followed first-order kinetics. With respect to the texture, the parameters obtained with the wire cell 2.5, 5 and 7.5 cm from the tip were activation energy (E a)=19, 20 and 23 kcal/mol, respectively, and those obtained with the Kramer cell were E a=18.3, 20.9 and 24 kcal/mol, depending on the section of asparagus investigated. For loss of weight an E a of 8.9 kcal/mol was obtained; thus, it is an important quality factor to be taken into account when optimizing the process of canning green asparagus.