Among the different dehydrated vegetables, carrot, due to its organoleptic and bioactive properties, is one of the most used as ingredient in the elaboration of several foodstuffs. Convective dehydration can be carried out at high temperatures for short times or at lower temperatures for longer times. Prior to drying, carrots are usually blanched in hot water or steam for air removal, stabilization of colour, solubilization of protopectin and inactivation of microorganisms and enzymes. Due to the increased consumer’s awareness of the relationship between diet and health, the food industry is interested in the search for mild processing technologies which give rise to final products with improved characteristics as compared to those obtained by conventional thermal treatments. In this respect, high-intensity ultrasound has been used as a pretreatment of vegetables and fruits before conventional drying and to assist osmotic dehydration. However, to the best of our knowledge hardly any is known on the quality parameters of convective dehydrated carrots previously blanched by ultrasound

This work has been funded by Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (Project AGL2007-63462/ALI), CYTED IBEROFUN (P109AC0302) and by Consolider Ingenio 2010 Fun-C. Food CSD 2007-0063. J.G.S. And A.C.S thank CSIC and the EU for a predoctoral grant and a postdoctoral contract, respectively.

Trabajo presentado al Effost Annual Meeting: "Process-Structure-Function Relationships", celebrado en Berlín (Alemania) del 9 al 11 de noviembre de 2011.

Peer reviewed