Food Processing and Preservation Homework
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History of pulsed electric field
Pulsed electric field is process that is non-thermal that uses short and high voltage pulses to process and preserve foods. The history of this process dates back to the culmination of the 19th century. It was during this time that the technique of treating and processing foods through the use of electrical current was first applied. Since that time of the century, in the 1960’s in specific, first cases of pulsed electric fields have been in use. German engineer Heinz Doevenspeck was behind the pioneering of the process. His pioneer ship was followed by Sale’s and Hamilton’s research work to determine what was required to create an effective process. Later, in 1980’s the first two processes were developed by Krupp Maschinentechnik. The processes were referred to as Elcrack and Elsteril and were based on the work on Doevenspeck. However, this processes did not work as expected and this led to their failure and the processes were dismantled at that time.
As years progressed, the technique was researched on again by universities and research labs. The research was mainly based on the main requirements that were essential in creating process that would last. The research was promising and was seen to be effective in liquid foods microbial decontamination, pre-treatment of vegetables and fruit tissues before extraction and waste water processing treatment. Several trials to have pulsed electric fields functional have been in existence since 1995. In 2005, this trials became successful when pasteurization treatment of the process was commercialized and achieved. Pre-treatment of fruits and vegetables using the process are on the way to commercialization presently.

Foods used for the process
The most common foods that are processed and preserved using this