Novel freeze drying based technologies for production and development of healthy snacks and meal replacement products with special nutrition and function: A review

Due to the increased knowledge of nutrients and functional ingredients for their positive effects on health, people are tending to choose healthy food products including the snacks rich in these nutrients and ingredients. Healthy meal replacement products, which are calorie-controlled, nutritionally-balanced or/and functionally-fortified “meals,” are another food product that meets people’s health needs. Novel processing technologies enable the production of new products meeting the expectations of consumers. Among these technologies, freeze drying based processing technologies are especially suitable for producing products containing abundant nutrients and functional ingredients due to the drying environment with lower temperature and oxygen content. In this paper, the characteristics of freeze drying and the novel processing technologies based on freeze drying applied to produce healthy snacks and meal replacement products are critically reviewed, the new freeze dried healthy snacks and meal replacement products enriched with special nutrition and function are also discussed.