Use of image analysis to evaluate the effect of high hydrostatic pressure and pasteurization as preservation treatments on the microstructure of red sweet pepper

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of HHP treatment and PAST on the microstructure of red Lamuyo-type sweet peppers using image analysis and to determine the parameters that allow characterizing the changes observed on the structure using different magnifications (100 ×, 200 ×, and 350 ×). The results show that all the preservation treatments evaluated caused structural modifications on the microstructure of red sweet pepper, but HHP at 500 MPa and PAST had less impact. Fractal dimension texture, contrast, inverse difference moment, and entropy are texture features that are appropriate for characterizing the effect of HHP and PAST on red pepper texture. In this context, it is important to consider the magnification at which red pepper texture is evaluated because cell damage caused by treatments is best observed at low magnification. Consequently, image analysis could be used in future studies to relate microstructure to the functionality of products subject to HHP.