Effect of Heat Treatment on Some Physicochemical Properties of Sweet Corn During Frozen Storage

Today, the consumption of frozen fruits and vegetables has been increasing due to the ability of these products to persuade the consumers to maintain nutritional value, time-saving and other practical reasons. The aim of this study was to investigate some physicochemical properties of two groups of corn kernels, single and attached to the cob, after heat processing and storage at -18 ° C. In this study, sweet corn in two forms of single kernels and corns on the cob were cooked for 4, 8 and 12 minutes and stored for 10 weeks at -18 ° C. The
effects of heat treatment on the drip loss, color changes, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, peroxidase activity, hardness and microstructure were investigated every two weeks. The amount of drip loss increased significantly (p<0.05) during freezing, and therefore the hardness decreased, in which the corns on the cob were more effective in maintaining their water structure as compared to the single kernels. The peroxidase activity, total phenolic content and antioxidant activity were significantly (p<0.05) decreased with heating process. The reversibility of peroxidase activity was observed during the freezing storage. In terms of the radical scavenging capacity, there was no significant difference between single corns and the ones on the cob. The amount of phenolic compounds increased until the fourth week and then decreased significantly (p<0.05) during storage at -18 °C. Moreover, the corns on the cob also showed more color changes than the single ones. Heat Treatment has significant effect on some physicochemical properties of corn during storage at -18 ° C