Effect of physical field-assisted freezing on the quality attributes of frozen baked sweet potato and its optimization

Abstract

Freezing plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety of foods over long storage periods. However, ice crystals within the cells can cause irreversible damages to tissue structures during the freezing process, resulting a significant problem on the quality. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of physical field-assisted freezing on the quality attributes of frozen baked sweet potato and identify the optimum operational parameters of quick-frozen process. Combination of magnetic field and ultrasound suggested the best results, with a 58.33% reduction in freezing time, 59.63% reduction in thawing loss, compared to IF. The hardness and the signal values of Sweetness and W2W of CF were 58.90%, 20.03%, and 27.07% higher than those of IF, which showed that CF have better maintenance of sample quality. Low field-nuclear magnetic resonance results showed that CF caused a decrease in the proportion of free water and an increase in the proportion of immobile water, and the water status are more similar to FB. Microscopic observations confirmed that the CF had the smallest and the most evenly distribution of ice crystals. Optimization of frozen baked sweet potato via response surface methodology, which revealed that the optimal conditions included a magnetic field intensity of 30 mT, an ultrasonic intensity of 320 W, and an ultrasonic time of 10 s. Therefore, treatment of combination with magnetic field and ultrasound is a promising novel method to improve the quality of frozen foods.