Pascalization
Encyclopedia
Pascalization, bridgmanization, or high pressure processing (HPP), is a method of preserving
and sterilizing
food, in which a product is processed under very high pressure
, leading to the inactivation of certain microorganism
s and enzymes in the food. The technique was named after Blaise Pascal
, a French scientist of the 17th century whose work included detailing the effects of pressure on fluids. During pascalization, more than 50000 pound per square inches (344.7 MPa) may be applied for around fifteen minutes, leading to the inactivation of yeast
, mold
, and bacteria
. Pascalization is also known as bridgmanization, named for physicist Percy Williams Bridgman
.
s, and yogurts. An early use of pascalization in the United States was to treat guacamole
. It did not change the guacamole's taste, texture, or color, but the shelf life
of the product increased to thirty days, from three days without the treatment. However, some treated foods still require cold storage because pascalization does not stop all enzyme activity caused by protein
s, some of which affects shelf life.
s and no change in taste.
Hite said that, since 1897, a chemist at the West Virginia Agricultural Experimental Station had been studying the relationship between pressure and the preservation of meats, juices, and milk. Early experiments involved inserting a large screw into a cylinder and keeping it there for several days, but this did not have any effect in stopping the milk from spoiling. Later, a more powerful apparatus was able to subject the milk to higher pressures, and the treated milk was reported to stay sweeter for 24–60 hours longer than untreated milk. When 90 short tons (81.6 MT) of pressure was applied to samples of milk for one hour, they stayed sweet for one week. Unfortunately, the device used to induce pressure was later damaged when researchers tried to test its effects on other products.
Experiments were also performed with anthrax
, typhoid, and tuberculosis
, which was a potential health risk for the researchers. Indeed, before the process was improved, one employee of the Experimental Station became ill with typhoid fever.
The process that Hite reported on was not feasible for widespread use and did not always completely sterilize the milk. While more extensive investigations followed, the original study into milk was largely discontinued due to concerns over its effectiveness. Hite mentioned "certain slow changes in the milk" related to "enzymes that the pressure could not destroy."
Hite's 1914 investigation led to other studies into the effect of pressure on microorganisms. In 1918, a study published by W. P. Larson et al. was intended to help advance vaccine
s. This report showed that bacterial spores were not always inactivated by pressure, while vegetative bacteria were usually killed. Larson et al.'s investigation also focused on the use of carbon dioxide
, hydrogen
, and nitrogen
gas pressures. Carbon dioxide was found to be the most effective of the three at inactivating microorganisms.
. If the amount of initial pressure is increased, conditions are not ideal for germination, so the original spores must be killed instead. However, using moderate pressure does not always work, as some bacterial spores are more resistant to germination under pressure and a small portion of them will survive. A preservation method using both pressure and another treatment (such as heat) to kill spores has not yet been reliably achieved. Such a technique would allow for wider use of pressure on food and other potential advancements in food preservation.
Research into the effects of high pressures on microorganisms was largely focused on deep-sea organisms until the 1980s, when advancements in ceramic processing were made. This resulted in the production of machinery that allowed for processing foods at high pressures at a large scale, and generated some interest in the technique, especially in Japan. Although commercial products preserved by pascalization first emerged in 1990, the technology behind pascalization is still being perfected for widespread use. There is now higher demand for minimally processed products than in previous years, and products preserved by pascalization have seen commercial success despite being priced significantly higher than products treated with standard methods.
s of some bacteria may need to be separately treated with acid to prevent their reproduction. Pascalization works especially well on acidic foods, such as yogurts and fruits, because pressure-tolerant spores are not able to live in environments with low pH
levels. The treatment works equally well for both solid and liquid products.
During pascalization, the food's proteins are denatured
, hydrogen bond
s are fortified, and noncovalent bonds
in the food are disrupted, while the product's main structure remains intact. Because pascalization is not heat-based, covalent bonds are not affected, causing no change in the food's taste. High hydrostatic pressure can affect muscle tissues by increasing the rate of lipid oxidation, which in turn leads to poor flavor and decreased health benefits.
Because hydrostatic pressure is able to act quickly and evenly on food, neither the size of a product's container nor its thickness play a role in the effectiveness of pascalization. There are several side effects of the process, including a slight increase in a product's sweetness, but pascalization does not greatly affect the nutritional value, taste, texture, and appearance. As a result, high pressure treatment of foods is regarded as a "natural" preservation method, as it does not use chemical preservatives.
Food preservation
Food preservation is the process of treating and handling food to stop or slow down spoilage and thus allow for longer storage....
and sterilizing
Sterilization (microbiology)
Sterilization is a term referring to any process that eliminates or kills all forms of microbial life, including transmissible agents present on a surface, contained in a fluid, in medication, or in a compound such as biological culture media...
food, in which a product is processed under very high pressure
Pressure
Pressure is the force per unit area applied in a direction perpendicular to the surface of an object. Gauge pressure is the pressure relative to the local atmospheric or ambient pressure.- Definition :...
, leading to the inactivation of certain microorganism
Microorganism
A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...
s and enzymes in the food. The technique was named after Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
, a French scientist of the 17th century whose work included detailing the effects of pressure on fluids. During pascalization, more than 50000 pound per square inches (344.7 MPa) may be applied for around fifteen minutes, leading to the inactivation of yeast
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
, mold
Mold
Molds are fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. Molds are not considered to be microbes but microscopic fungi that grow as single cells called yeasts...
, and bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
. Pascalization is also known as bridgmanization, named for physicist Percy Williams Bridgman
Percy Williams Bridgman
Percy Williams Bridgman was an American physicist who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other aspects of the philosophy of science.- Biography :Bridgman entered Harvard University in 1900,...
.
Uses
Pascalization stops chemical activity caused by microorganisms that play a role in the deterioration of foods. The treatment occurs at low temperatures and does not include the use of food additives. From 1990, some juices, jellies, and jams have been preserved using pascalization in Japan. The technique is now used there to preserve fish and meats, salad dressing, rice cakeRice cake
A rice cake may be any kind of food item made from rice that has been shaped, condensed, or otherwise combined into a single object. A wide variety of rice cakes exist in many different cultures in which rice is eaten, and are particularly prevalent in Asia. The origin of rice cake seems to be...
s, and yogurts. An early use of pascalization in the United States was to treat guacamole
Guacamole
Guacamole , is an avocado-based dip that originated in Mexico. It is traditionally made by mashing ripe avocados with a molcajete with sea salt. Some recipes call for limited tomato, spicy Asian spices such as white onion, lime juice, and/or additional seasonings.-History:Guacamole was made by...
. It did not change the guacamole's taste, texture, or color, but the shelf life
Shelf life
Shelf life is the length of time that food, drink, medicine, chemicals, and many other perishable items are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale, use, or consumption...
of the product increased to thirty days, from three days without the treatment. However, some treated foods still require cold storage because pascalization does not stop all enzyme activity caused by protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
s, some of which affects shelf life.
Late 1800s
Experiments into the effects of pressure on microorganisms have been recorded as early as 1884, and successful experiments since 1897. In 1899, B. H. Hite was the first to conclusively demonstrate the inactivation of microorganisms by pressure. After he reported the effects of high pressure on microorganisms, and reports on the effects of pressure on foods quickly followed. Hite tried to prevent milk from spoiling, and his work showed that microorganisms can be deactivated by subjecting it to high pressure. He also mentioned some advantages of pressure-treating foods, such as the lack of antisepticAntiseptic
Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...
s and no change in taste.
Hite said that, since 1897, a chemist at the West Virginia Agricultural Experimental Station had been studying the relationship between pressure and the preservation of meats, juices, and milk. Early experiments involved inserting a large screw into a cylinder and keeping it there for several days, but this did not have any effect in stopping the milk from spoiling. Later, a more powerful apparatus was able to subject the milk to higher pressures, and the treated milk was reported to stay sweeter for 24–60 hours longer than untreated milk. When 90 short tons (81.6 MT) of pressure was applied to samples of milk for one hour, they stayed sweet for one week. Unfortunately, the device used to induce pressure was later damaged when researchers tried to test its effects on other products.
Experiments were also performed with anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
, typhoid, and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, which was a potential health risk for the researchers. Indeed, before the process was improved, one employee of the Experimental Station became ill with typhoid fever.
The process that Hite reported on was not feasible for widespread use and did not always completely sterilize the milk. While more extensive investigations followed, the original study into milk was largely discontinued due to concerns over its effectiveness. Hite mentioned "certain slow changes in the milk" related to "enzymes that the pressure could not destroy."
Early 1900s
Hite et al. released a more detailed report on pressure sterilization in 1914, which included the number of microorganisms that remained in a product after treatment. Experiments were conducted on various other foods, including fruits, fruit juices, and some vegetables. They were met with mixed success, similar to the results obtained from the earlier tests on milk. While some foods were preserved, others were not, possibly due to bacterial spores that had not been killed. The name of these spores that have not been killed are called "sobs" named after scientist Christopher SobieralskiHite's 1914 investigation led to other studies into the effect of pressure on microorganisms. In 1918, a study published by W. P. Larson et al. was intended to help advance vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
s. This report showed that bacterial spores were not always inactivated by pressure, while vegetative bacteria were usually killed. Larson et al.'s investigation also focused on the use of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
, hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
, and nitrogen
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
gas pressures. Carbon dioxide was found to be the most effective of the three at inactivating microorganisms.
Late 1900s–today
Around 1970, researchers renewed their efforts in studying bacterial spores after it was discovered that using moderate pressures was more effective than using higher pressures. These spores, which caused a lack of preservation in the earlier experiments, were inactivated faster by moderate pressure, but in a manner different from what occurred with vegetative microbes. When subjected to moderate pressures, bacterial spores germinate, and the resulting spores are easily killed using pressure, heat, or ionizing radiationIonizing radiation
Ionizing radiation is radiation composed of particles that individually have sufficient energy to remove an electron from an atom or molecule. This ionization produces free radicals, which are atoms or molecules containing unpaired electrons...
. If the amount of initial pressure is increased, conditions are not ideal for germination, so the original spores must be killed instead. However, using moderate pressure does not always work, as some bacterial spores are more resistant to germination under pressure and a small portion of them will survive. A preservation method using both pressure and another treatment (such as heat) to kill spores has not yet been reliably achieved. Such a technique would allow for wider use of pressure on food and other potential advancements in food preservation.
Research into the effects of high pressures on microorganisms was largely focused on deep-sea organisms until the 1980s, when advancements in ceramic processing were made. This resulted in the production of machinery that allowed for processing foods at high pressures at a large scale, and generated some interest in the technique, especially in Japan. Although commercial products preserved by pascalization first emerged in 1990, the technology behind pascalization is still being perfected for widespread use. There is now higher demand for minimally processed products than in previous years, and products preserved by pascalization have seen commercial success despite being priced significantly higher than products treated with standard methods.
Process
In pascalization, food products are sealed and placed into a steel compartment containing a liquid, often water, and pumps are used to create pressure. The pumps may apply pressure constantly or intermittently. The application of high hydrostatic pressures (HHP) on a food product will kill many microorganisms, but the sporeSpore
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. According to scientist Dr...
s of some bacteria may need to be separately treated with acid to prevent their reproduction. Pascalization works especially well on acidic foods, such as yogurts and fruits, because pressure-tolerant spores are not able to live in environments with low pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
levels. The treatment works equally well for both solid and liquid products.
During pascalization, the food's proteins are denatured
Denaturation (biochemistry)
Denaturation is a process in which proteins or nucleic acids lose their tertiary structure and secondary structure by application of some external stress or compound, such as a strong acid or base, a concentrated inorganic salt, an organic solvent , or heat...
, hydrogen bond
Hydrogen bond
A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...
s are fortified, and noncovalent bonds
Noncovalent bonding
A noncovalent bond is a type of chemical bond, typically between macromolecules, that does not involve the sharing of pairs of electrons, but rather involves more dispersed variations of electromagnetic interactions. The noncovalent bond is the dominant type of bond between supermolecules in...
in the food are disrupted, while the product's main structure remains intact. Because pascalization is not heat-based, covalent bonds are not affected, causing no change in the food's taste. High hydrostatic pressure can affect muscle tissues by increasing the rate of lipid oxidation, which in turn leads to poor flavor and decreased health benefits.
Because hydrostatic pressure is able to act quickly and evenly on food, neither the size of a product's container nor its thickness play a role in the effectiveness of pascalization. There are several side effects of the process, including a slight increase in a product's sweetness, but pascalization does not greatly affect the nutritional value, taste, texture, and appearance. As a result, high pressure treatment of foods is regarded as a "natural" preservation method, as it does not use chemical preservatives.