Processing Foods: Quality Optimization and Process Assessment provides a large body of updated information - helping researchers and industrialists make use of new concepts, technologies and approaches that are at the heart of modern food research. It will be a useful tool in the interweaving of scientific and technological information that the multidisciplinarity of food processing and preservation requires. The book concerns conventional and emerging technologies - reviewing relevant chemical, physical and microbiological changes in food - occurring during processing. It discusses methods to monitor and assess such changes with a view to product optimization. Chapters include reviews of different subjects and specific studies that clarify the issues and their potential applications. The topics are divided into five sections: thermal processing, freezing, drying, high pressure processing and minimal and combined processes.