Improving food dehydration

The moisture content of a food has a large influence on food quality and processability. An accurate map showing how moisture is distributed throughout a food product is critical for the efficient design of food processing operations.

Current techniques only allow for mapping of foods such as pasta at high initial moisture contents (above 62% moisture).However, the food industry needs to be able to map lower moisture contents.With Washington State University’s NMR Center,Pawan Singh, UI research faculty in food science and toxicology, has developed a new magnetic resonance imaging technique that allows for the imaging of pasta containing between 10 and 60 percent moisture.

This technique can also be used during potato dehydration processes to optimize the operation of food dryers and decrease processing costs. Contact Singh at psingh@uidaho.edu.

© 2004 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.