Food mechanics recipe to serve up healthy food that lasts

Date:
September 14, 2020
Source:
Queensland University of Technology
Summary:
Researchers are investigating the science of food drying to design
faster, cheaper and better ways to store food.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
QUT researchers are working to design faster, cheaper, and better ways
to store food.


========================================================================== Published in journal PLOS ONE, researchers used QUT's supercomputing
facilities to examine the micromechanical behaviour of plant tissues
and how biological cells behave while dehydrated or dried.

Lead investigator Dr Charith Rathnayaka is a computational scientist
from QUT's Faculty of Science and Engineering investigating the physics, mathematics, and biology of agricultural cell structures to improve
food production.

"By developing the computational model, it is possible to estimate how the cells are being damaged when they are being processed for preservation,
storage or packaging," Dr Rathnayaka said.

"This innovation has the potential to influence the future of food
drying processes globally in terms of reducing cost, optimising food processing, energy conservation and increasing dried food shelf life."
Key findings: -
* Study looks at how plant cells behave under different types of
mechanical
forces
* Research involved two-step simulation and experimental stages *
The computational model developed conclusively demonstrated it can
simulate the micromechanical behaviour of dried plant cells
* Provide insight on improving design of industrial machinery for food
drying processes
* Implications to move beyond plant cells to biomedical and human
cosmetic
applications.

Dr Rathnayaka said the findings of this study could lead to better
designs for industrial drying of fruits, vegetables, or any other plant biological material.



==========================================================================
As an example, he described the process by using fresh fruit such as
apples which were simultaneously dried and imaged and then compared
against the predictions from the simulations.

The experimental data revealed microscopic tissues of the apple and the differences between fresh conditions and extremely dried conditions,
with imagery featured in journal Soft Matter. (pics) "One specific reason
for using apple as representative plant-food material was due to the
abundant availability of experimental findings," he said.

"It showed that by controlling the processing conditions such as
temperature, pressure, humidity and processing speed, it is possible to
control the damage on apple cells to extract the best nutritional value."
He said the results also showed that at extreme dryness levels, the
cells naturally get damaged even without processing.



==========================================================================
"Due to the high pressure in the cells at fresh conditions, they are
highly vulnerable to higher forces that take place during processing
such as cutting, packing, or extruding," he said.

"This provides valuable insights for not only processing apples but many
other comparable fruits and vegetables." Dr Rathnayaka said the study's findings have implications for further research into food processing
under drought conditions.

He said there is a need to find innovative ways to investigate harvesting
and processing produce under extreme climatic conditions.

"Currently there is a research gap in accurately evaluating and predicting drought and heat resistance of plant-food tissues," he said.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has placed even more of an emphasis on the
ever-growing importance of plant-food security and more efficient ways
to quantify and predict the performance of agricultural produce during droughts."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Queensland_University_of_Technology. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. C. M. Rathnayaka, H. C. P. Karunasena, W. D. C. C. Wijerathne, W.

Senadeera, Y. T. Gu. A three-dimensional (3-D) meshfree-based
computational model to investigate stress-strain-time relationships
of plant cells during drying. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235712 DOI:
10.1371/ journal.pone.0235712 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200914095859.htm

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