Efficient Plant Foods Processing Based on Infrared Heating

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Infrared (IR) heating is a potential energy-saving and high-efficiency technology, whose application in the food processing field is still in its infancy. IR heating has prominent advantages over conventional heating, namely, uniform heating in a shorter time with less quality degradation, but it has a salient shortcoming of low penetration depth, which makes it unsuitable for heating large or thick food materials. Efficient IR processing is to maximize the advantages of IR heating, and to overcome its shortcomings for achieving the goal of producing high-quality foods efficiently. In order to open up a broader path for IR processing in foods, this article reviews approaches to realizing efficient IR processing and introduces main applications as well as research progress of high-efficiency IR technology. Finally, some trends about the development of IR processing are also presented.