Modern methods of treatment plant materials for waste minimization

Abstract

Nowadays in the food industry great attention is paid to reducing losses at the stages of agricultural products’ harvesting, treatment, and storage. Many developed countries produce food products of extended storage period. To increase the shelf life of semi-finished and finished food products, non-thermal treatment methods are being used that allow one to save a greater amount of biologically active substances. One of these methods is products treatment by ionizing radiation. The article presents the results of assessing the influence of radiation treatment on microbiological, physico-chemical and organoleptic characteristics of vacuumized semi-finished products from potatoes. A technology for the production of semi-finished products using ionizing radiation has been developed, an effective dose of irradiation of vacuumized semi-finished products has been selected, which allows prolonging their shelf life. The research results show the influence of ionizing radiation on the cellular structure of root crops, which soften a little when treated by radiation. The determined quantity of mesophilic aerobic and facultative anaerobic microorganisms shows that ionizing radiation has a microbicidal and microbostatic effect, which allows increasing the shelf life of vacuumized semi-finished products from potatoes.