Abstract
Food stability is influenced by intrinsic factors such as food composition, pH, and water activity, as well as extrinsic factors such as temperature and relative humidity. Enthalpy relaxation is used to study the storage stability of amorphous foods and pharmaceuticals in the glassy state. This chapter covers recent efforts to correlate enthalpy relaxation time, a measure of molecular mobility in glassy systems, with the rate of physical and chemical changes in foods. Water activity and glass transitions are two important concepts that have been investigated and applied to determine the stability of low-moisture foods. The state of food solids and their state transitions are important, since the glass transition concept elucidates physicochemical changes in foods during nonequilibrium processing and storage environments. Many studies show that calorimetric relaxation times of amorphous glass correlates well with its physical and chemical stability.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Water Activity in Foods |
Subtitle of host publication | Fundamentals and Applications |
Publisher | Wiley |
Pages | 271-285 |
Number of pages | 15 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781118765982 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781118768310 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2020 |
Keywords
- Calorimetric relaxation times
- Enthalpy relaxation
- Food stability
- Glass transitions
- Low-moisture foods
- Water activity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Engineering
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences