Min Zhang1*, Xiaofei Wu1and Arun S Mujumdar2
1State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, School of Food Science and Technology,
Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China,
2 Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Quebec, Canada
Food drying often has obvious conflict on safety/quality, efficiency, and energy consumption. High efficiency can lead to low energy consumption and saving drying costs but may cause reduced quality and even safety of the dried foods which may reduce the value of the dried products. So it is very important for the researchers and manufacturers to balance the needs among safe shelf life & enough quality, efficiency, and energy consumption. A comprehensive review of recent developments in this area can be for better and deep understanding of food drying. Some new technologies with combined drying characteristics have been developed to meet these special requirements on efficiency, energy consumption, safety and quality. These high efficient combined drying methods can protect the qualities of fresh foods (such as color, flavor, nutrients, rehydration, appearance, uniformity, etc) and safety during the energy-saving drying process. Some novel hybrid drying methods with other latest technologies like nano-technology, smart technology, NMR & hyper-spectral image technology, extreme technology, can be good choice to be used by the researchers.
