Fresh foods like vegetables, fruits, and aquatic products have high water activity and they are highly heat-sensitive and easily degradable. Dehydration is one of the most common methods used to improve food shelf-life. However, drying methods used for food dehydration must not only be efficient and economic but also yield high-quality products based on flavor, nutrients, color, rehydration, uniformity, appearance, and texture. This paper reviews some new drying technologies developed for dehydration of vegetables, fruits, and aquatic products. These include: infrared drying, microwave drying, radio frequency drying, electrohydrodynamic drying, etc., as well as hybrid drying methods combining two or more different drying techniques. A comprehensive review of recent developments in high-quality drying of vegetables, fruits and aquatic products is presented and recommendations are made for future research.
Keywords: Hybrid drying; aquatic products; fruits; high-quality; new developments; vegetables.