Engineering food ingredients with high-intensity ultrasound

The use of ultrasound in the food industry has increased in the last decades. Ultrasound has been used both to analyze food structure and composition at low ultrasonic intensities and high frequencies and to modify ingredients at high ultrasonic intensities and low frequencies. Application of the latter is referred to as high-intensity (power) ultrasonication and is generally carried out at frequencies of =0.1 MHz and ultrasonic intensities of 10–100 W cm⁻². In the food industry, power ultrasonication has proved to be a highly effective food processing and preservation technology, and use of high-intensity ultrasound with or without heat may be used, for example, to denature enzymes, aid in the extraction of valuable compounds from plants and seeds, tenderize meat, and homogenize or disperse two-phase systems such as emulsions or suspensions (Mason et al., 1996).