Accelerated texture softening of some root vegetables by Ohmic heating

Effects of different thermal processing methods (Ohmic heating, high and low power, microwave and conventional heating) on textural properties of cylindrical pieces of root vegetables of carrot, red beet and golden carrot were investigated and compared with conventional and microwave processes. The samples were subjected to different processing methods and textural parameters of the processed samples were analyzed using texture profile analysis (TPA) at different processing times. Texture parameters-processing time data were fitted into a previously suggested equation and texture softening rate (K) and residual constant (A) values were calculated. From the K and A values it can be concluded that not only Ohmic heating resulted in greater softening rates but also the final hardness of the samples treated by Ohmic heating was significantly lower than those of other samples treated by either conventional or microwave methods. Negative correlations were found between texture hardness and weight loss of all samples undergone different processing methods.