Physical Principles of Food Preservation

I first became familiar with this text in 1979 when I began graduate school.The garish orange color of both Part I (food chemistry) and Part II (physical principles) of the Principles in Food Science series jumped out at me from the bookstore shelves.Part I was a required purchase.However, Part II -Physical Principles of Food Preservation -was not, and it has been one of the best technical book purchases I have ever made.I have loaned my rateared copy to dozens of colleagues over the years.It is the one book I demanded to get back on threats that filchers would find themselves dressed in the aforementioned cover color with accompanying coupled ankle bracelets if the book was not returned.I have used Karel and Lund in just about every class I have taught over the past 20 years and have made it required reading for graduate students.It baffles me why there were not additional printings, and I am one of the numerous people mentioned in the introduction who had hounded the authors over the years to produce a second edition.Thank you, gentlemen.This book will remain an excellent text for a course in food engineering or food technology, unlike Part I of the original series, which has become bloated and inaccessible, particularly for undergraduate classes.For those familiar with the first edition, many of the figures and tables will be familiar (actually identical), which some might find problematic, although I did not.I also appreciated the use and citing of primary references, some prior to the 1920s.Not only does this place our field within a historical context, it also shows students that science was conducted before the time references could be downloaded off of the Internet.The text is in clear, correct English, and "math error free" -problems facing many of the texts (particularly of the engineering genre) that I have examined for possible use in food technology courses over the years.The authors make difficult material understandable and include relevant problems throughout plus tables and figures with useful data.Their sensible approach to modeling makes the book helpful to real people who process real food.In most chapters of the text there are examples of how to calculate various physical properties or processing parameters, but more examples are always better.The text includes new sections on nonthermal processing technologies, just emerging in the 1970s.There are new or expanded sections on thermo-Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKJFPPJournal of Food Processing and Preservation0145-8892Copyright 2004