JP2001037411A - Treatment of fruit and vegetable - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for treating a fruit or vegetable after harvesting so as to prolong the preserving time thereof, while preventing them from accelerated maturation. SOLUTION: This method for treating a fruit or a vegetable comprises successively carrying out a step of cooling the fruit or the vegetable to the center by showering with an aqueous cooling liquid composition at 0-15 deg.C, or immersing in the aqueous cooling liquid composition, and a step of subjecting the cooled fruit or vegetable to a treatment by showering with an aqueous liquid treatment composition previously heated to 40-60 deg.C for <=10 min, or immersing in the aqueous liquid treatment composition for <=10 min, in order.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a method for treating fresh fruits and vegetables.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Freshly harvested fruits and vegetables are usually stored for a relatively long time before they are marketed and consumed.

[0003] It is important that the fruits and vegetables are preserved in quality during the period of storage and not particularly lose their appearance. When fungi spread on the surface of these fruits and vegetables, they quickly rot, or the fruits and vegetables are oxidized by unripe portions and sunburn portions, and the surfaces turn brown. Also, these phenomena accumulate on shiny surfaces,
Eventually it spreads to the stem of the plant. In addition, the above phenomenon will be more rapid if the surface of the fruit or vegetable has small scratches.

[0004] Therefore, in order to delay the deterioration of fruits and vegetables as much as possible, conventionally, there is known a technique of treating fruits and vegetables before storage using an antibacterial agent having an antibacterial activity or an antioxidant having an antioxidant activity. Have been.

For example, French Patent Publication No. 960310
No. 0 discloses a method for treating fruits and vegetables. The treatment method comprises treating a liquid composition for treatment containing at least one treatment agent selected from a polyphenol-type antioxidant, a terpene compound and a mixture thereof in the form of an aqueous vehicle.
Heating to a temperature of 0 to 60 ° C. and immersing a fruit or vegetable in the liquid composition for treatment for 10 minutes or less to reach the temperature.

[0006]

However, when the above method is used, the ripening of fruits and vegetables is accelerated. In particular,
This method is not appropriate for heat sensitive materials such as peaches, apricots, tomatoes, pears, etc.

[0007] In order to overcome the above problems, French Patent Publication No. 9603100 discloses a method of cooling fruits and vegetables immediately after contact with a hot treatment liquid to a storage temperature of 0 to 15 ° C. . However, this method has the following problems. In other words, fruits and vegetables that have undergone such treatment may ripen during storage.

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for treating fruits and vegetables that can solve the above-mentioned problems.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the processing method of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, cooling the fruits and vegetables to the core by bathing or immersing in the cooling aqueous composition higher than 0 ° C. and lower than 15 ° C., and cooling the fruits and vegetables within 10 minutes. Time, 40 in advance
Bathing or immersing the treatment aqueous composition heated to a temperature of ６０60 ° C. in a sequential manner.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The first step makes it possible to prevent premature ripening of fruits and vegetables despite contact with a heat treatment liquid. What is important in the first step is that the cooling must extend to the inside of the plant, not to the surface of the fruits and vegetables.

Further, the above-mentioned aqueous composition for cooling is
Although it is made of water, it may contain various additives such as sodium hypochlorite for disinfecting the water. The addition of additives usually requires a small amount, but is usually less than 2% by weight, preferably less than 1% by weight. When the additive is sodium hypochlorite, the amount added is 20 to 200 ppm, for example, 30 to 200 ppm.
100 ppm is sufficient.

The temperature for cooling fruits and vegetables in the first step is lower than or equal to the conventional temperature disclosed in the conventional example. In practice, this cooling temperature is higher than 0 ° C.

Table 1 shows the conventional storage temperatures for storing some of the most commonly used fruits and vegetables.

[0014]

[Table 1]

[0015] Therefore, the above cooling requires the use of a cold aqueous solution composition at 0 to 15 ° C. In addition,
A person skilled in the art can adjust the temperature of the aqueous cooling composition to the desired temperature at the end of the first step.

That is, the required cooling operation can be completed earlier as the temperature of the aqueous cooling composition becomes closer to the desired cooling temperature. In addition, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the temperature of the aqueous cooling composition is from 0 to 10C, more preferably from 0C to 5 to 6C.

In the present invention, the cooling of the fruit is performed by a water cooling technique. That is, the fruit is immersed in the cooling water or the cooling water is poured on the fruit. This is a commonly used technique for cooling fruits and vegetables.

[0018] Water cooling by cooling water bathing is performed by spraying fruits and vegetables placed on a belt conveyor with cold water. More specifically, cold water from a tank located above the belt conveyor is fed in a continuous flow manner. Pour on vegetables. By operating in this manner, not only does cold water flow over the surface of fruits and vegetables,
Vegetables and fruits can be covered with a film of cooling water.

Water cooling by immersion is performed by immersing fruits and vegetables in a flow of cooling water. Since fruits and vegetables float on the surface of the water in the cooling water, the cooling effect is slightly weaker than the above method.

Although the above-mentioned water cooling method is a preferred technique in the present invention, other cooling techniques can be used as long as the inside of fruits and vegetables can be cooled to a desired temperature. As can be seen from this point, the same cooling effect as described above can be obtained by refrigeration of fruits and vegetables in a refrigerator at 0 to 15 ° C. in the first step under appropriate conditions.

The time required for cooling differs depending on the desired cooling temperature, the temperature of the aqueous cooling composition, and the technique for cooling the inside of the plant.

In the case of using an aqueous cooling composition at 0 to 15 ° C. for cooling with water, the cooling effect is sufficient if the composition is cooled for 2 minutes to 2 hours. When the temperature of the aqueous composition for cooling is 0 to 6 ° C, the time for spraying or dipping is 2 to 60 minutes, preferably 4 to 30 minutes.

When treating peaches and tomatoes, cooling by dipping or showering is performed for 15 to 30 minutes, and the aqueous cooling composition used is 0 to 5 ° C. or 0 to 6 ° C.

The second step is an important treatment, and is an aqueous composition (for treatment) having a temperature of 40 to 60 ° C., preferably 45 to 55 ° C., more preferably 48 to 52 ° C., for example, 50 ° C. (Referred to as composition) for treating fruits and vegetables.

Such an aqueous composition may be mainly composed of water.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the aqueous composition contains, in the form of an aqueous vehicle, at least one treating agent having an antioxidant activity and at least one treating agent having an antibacterial activity. I do.

Specifically, at this stage, fruits and vegetables are brought into contact with the aqueous solution composition for treatment by dipping or showering, and the contact time is at most 10 minutes, particularly 30 seconds to 10 minutes, preferably 30 minutes. Seconds to 5 minutes. Usually, a contact time of 2-3 minutes is sufficient. Of course, such contact time needs to be adjusted according to the properties of fruits and vegetables.

In the second step, the apparent portions of the fruits and vegetables are heated. By contacting the hot treatment liquid within a time period of less than 10 minutes, the temperature of the fruit is usually increased to 20%, preferably to 15%, more preferably to 1%.
It is possible to increase to 0%. The dipping and showering techniques used in this step are as described above.

As described above, by performing the treatment with the hot treatment solution by showering or dipping, a protective effect for preventing early ripening, sunburn, and fungal infection of fruits and vegetables can be obtained. In addition, if the aqueous treatment aqueous composition for heat treatment contains one or more treatment agents, these treatment agents can be used both as an antioxidant and a bactericide and are absorbed on the surface of the plant. The protection of vegetables and vegetables is long-term. In this way, fruits and vegetables become protected from oxidation and fungal infection for a long period of time.

When the above-mentioned treating composition contains an antioxidant or an antibacterial agent, the content of the latter is 100 to 10,000 ppm.
It is contained in the amount of. Preferably, such a treatment composition contains 500 to 10,000 ppm of an antioxidant and / or 100 to 10,000 ppm of an antimicrobial agent.

Antioxidants which can be used in the present invention are those commonly used in the art, for example, diphenylamine, ethoxyquin, BHA (3-t-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole, and 2-t-t-anisole). Butyl-4-hydroxyanisole, BHT (2,6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol), ascorbic acid, tocopherol, and polyphenols.
Polyphenols are compounds having one or more phenyl rings substituted by at least two hydroxy groups.

Examples of such polyphenols are quercetin and rosmaridiphenol represented by the following chemical formula.

[0033]

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[0034]

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Preferred antioxidants are vitamin E (tocopherol) and polyphenols extracted from natural products, such as polyphenols extracted from fruits and vegetables.

Polyphenols extracted from natural products are
It is a complex mixture of several polyphenols, still with a variety of natural products. Such a mixture contains at least 70%, preferably 80%, more preferably 90% of polyphenols.

It is also possible to use a mixture having a low concentration. Such natural extracts contain relatively high concentrations of polyphenols and are available in the art. Among them, the extract from steal stew contains, for example, relatively high concentration of polyphenol.

As the antibacterial substance, any one of various substances known in the art can be used.
Thiabendazole, terpene compounds, ortho-phenylphenol and salts thereof, enilconazole (enilconazole)
conazole).

The antimicrobial terpene is preferably a monoterpene, for example pinene or limonin. Of these, hydrocarbon monoterpenes are preferred because of their high reactivity. Further examples include terpineol, eucalyptol, menthol, menthol, carvone, cineol, citronellal, eugenol and the like. Of these compounds, eucalyptol is the most effective.

The above substances are all natural substances,
It is also possible to synthesize them artificially. For example, d-carvone can be extracted from cumin, 1-carvone can be extracted from common mints (mentha spicata), and eugenol can be extracted from clove.

[0041] Such a treatment composition is preferably
It exists in solution or dispersed in a liquid vehicle.

Depending on the relative solubility of each substance in water,
The treatment composition further contains at least one surfactant selected from the group consisting of a nonionic surfactant, a cationic surfactant, an anionic surfactant, and an amphoteric surfactant. be able to.

When the composition for thermal treatment contains an antioxidant and / or an antibacterial agent, the amount of the composition used is preferably determined according to the normally available dose. Specifically, the amount of the composition used is one of the fruits and vegetables to be treated.
0.4 to 40 g of antioxidant and / or 0.4 to 40 g of antimicrobial per ton.

Preferably, the amount of the antioxidant used is 2 to 4
0 g / ton, and the amount of the antibacterial agent used, for example, a terpene compound, is 0.4 to 20 g / ton.

If the required time has elapsed after the treatment using the hot treatment composition, the work can be completed by a conventionally known method, for example, by stopping showering with the treatment liquid, or Transfer fruits and vegetables from the dip tank.
These fruits and vegetables are stored and sold at a later date.

The step of cooling the plant to the core and the step of treatment with an antioxidant and / or an antibacterial agent are performed sequentially. That is, when the required cooling temperature is achieved,
As a next step, fruits and vegetables are treated with the treatment composition described above.

According to the method of the present invention, premature ripening of fruits and vegetables treated with the hot treatment composition can be prevented. This method is particularly effective for treating heat sensitive fruits and vegetables such as peaches, apricots, pears, and nectarines.

Further, according to the method of the present invention, it is not necessary to cool fruits and vegetables after being treated with the hot treatment composition. Such a subsequent cooling treatment is a measure for preventing premature ripening of fruits and vegetables as proposed in the conventional example. However, since the fruit or vegetable at this time still has one or more treating agents, such a subsequent cooling treatment is not so preferable. That is, such a subsequent cooling treatment is performed by contact with cold water (particularly, immersion in cold water or spraying with cold water).
After the treatment with the antioxidant and / or the antibacterial agent, the fruits and vegetables are washed, and the residual portion of the composition on the surface of the fruits and vegetables when treated with the hot treatment composition is removed. Will be removed. Ultimately, such cleaning reduces the effectiveness of the antioxidant and / or antimicrobial treatment.

Further, the present invention provides a plant facility for extending the storage period of fruits and vegetables after harvesting and preventing premature ripening. That is, the plant equipment of the present invention is a means for cooling fruits and vegetables to the core by bathing or immersing in the cooling aqueous composition higher than 0 ° C and lower than 15 ° C, Means for immersing the fruits and vegetables in the aqueous solution composition for treatment preheated to a temperature of 40 to 60 ° C. for 10 minutes or less.

[0050]

The present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the following examples.

First Step of Treatment First, an aqueous composition (2 ° C.) was prepared from a commercially available aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite (active chlorine content: 30 to 50 ppm) at a dose of 300 g / m 3. The cooling operation was performed on the fruits and vegetables shown in Table 2 below using the liquid composition. The time required for the cooling process is shown in Table 2 below.
As shown in FIG.

[0052]

[Table 2]

Second Step of Treatment Next, tomatoes and peaches are showered for 2 minutes using a water-for-treatment liquid composition obtained by adding 4000 ppm of eugenol to water and preheating to 50 ° C. went. After this treatment, the tomatoes and peaches were stored in a cold room at 0 ° C.

[0054]

According to the observation, tomato and peach which have been treated as described above are taken in at the same harvest time, have the same degree of maturity, and are prepared under the same conditions under the prior art (composition for heat treatment). And then cooled by bathing in an aqueous composition at 2 ° C.).

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) A23L 3/3544 501 A23B 7/156 F-term (Reference) 4B021 LA41 LP10 LW02 MC01 MK16 MK17 MK23 MK26 MP02 MP03 4B069 CA02 HA07 HA11 KA01 KB01 KB03 KC21 KC22 KC26 KC28

Claims (13)

[Claims] 1. A method for treating fruits and vegetables after harvesting so that they can be stored for a long period of time and preventing their premature ripening. The method comprises bathing a cooling aqueous composition higher than 0 ° C. and lower than 15 ° C., or the cooling aqueous solution. Cooling the fruits and vegetables to the core by immersing the fruits and vegetables into the core composition;
A step of bathing or immersing the aqueous solution composition for treatment heated to a temperature of 0 ° C. in a sequential manner. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the fruits and vegetables are selected from peaches, apricots, tomatoes and pears. 3. The method of cooling fruits and vegetables to the core,
3. Method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that it is carried out by showering or dipping for 2 minutes to 2 hours. 4. Cooling to the core is performed at a temperature higher than 0 ° C.
4. The process according to claim 1, wherein the process is carried out with the composition at a temperature lower than [deg.] C. for a period of from 2 minutes to 1 hour. 5. The operation of cooling peaches and tomatoes is 0 to
The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the method is performed by showering or dipping for 15 to 30 minutes using an aqueous composition having a temperature of 5 ° C. 6. The treatment composition according to claim 1, wherein the treatment composition comprises an aqueous vehicle having at least one treatment agent having antioxidant activity or antibacterial activity. the method of. 7. The treatment composition according to claim 5, wherein the composition is 500 to 10,
7. The method according to claim 6, comprising 000 ppm of an antioxidant. 8. The treatment composition comprises diphenylamine, ethoxyquine, BHA (3-t-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole and 2-t-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole, BHT (2,6-di- 8. The method according to claim 6, further comprising an antioxidant selected from tert-butyl-p-cresol), ascorbic acid, tocopherol, and polyphenol. 9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the antioxidant is selected from polyphenols and vitamin E extracted from natural substances. 10. The treatment composition according to claim 10, wherein the composition is 100 to 10,
7. The method according to claim 6, comprising 000 ppm of an antimicrobial agent. 11. The treatment composition according to claim 1, wherein the treatment composition contains a kind of antibacterial substance selected from thiabendazole, terpene compound, ortho-phenylphenol and salts thereof, and enilconazole. 11. The method according to 6 or 10. 12. The method according to claim 6, wherein the dose of the treatment composition is 0.4 to 40 g per ton of vegetables and fruits. 13. A plant facility configured to prolong the storage period and prevent premature ripening of fruits and vegetables after harvesting, wherein the plant is immersed in a cooling aqueous composition higher than 0 ° C. and lower than 15 ° C. Means for cooling the fruits and vegetables to the core by immersing the fruits and vegetables in the aqueous solution composition for cooling;
Means for bathing or immersing the treatment aqueous composition heated to a temperature of 0 ° C. in the treatment aqueous composition.