High-humidity hot air impingement blanching alters texture, cell-wall polysaccharides, water status and distribution...

Blanching pretreatment plays an essential role in fruits and vegetables processing to obtain excellent final products. The purpose of current work was to characterise the texture, cell-wall polysaccharides and water distribution of grapes pre- and post- high-humidity hot air impingement blanching (HHAIB). The cell-wall pectins nanostructure, water status and distribution of samples were determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM), low field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) and magnetic resonance image (MRI), respectively. Results revealed that blanching caused significant berry tissue softening which was accompanied by an increase of water-soluble pectin (WSP, from 39.57 to 57.44 g/100 g fresh weight) and a decrease of chelate-soluble pectin (CSP, from 79.34 to 53.78 g/100 g fresh weight) and sodium-carbonate-soluble pectin (NSP, from 364.23 to 187.64 g/100 g fresh weight) concentration. Obvious depolymerization and degradation was observed in cell-wall polysaccharides nanostructure in blanched berries. The length frequencies of WSP chains are mainly distributed in the range of 0.51-2.00 μm, while it was 1.01-2.00 μm for the CSP chains of blanched samples. LF-NMR transverse relaxation time and MRI analysis indicated that HHAIB treatment resulted in a water loss and migration from berry interior to surface tissue. The findings in present study provide a deeper understanding in tissue softening and moisture variation of blanched berries.