A K LEO T H E
MONDAY, DECEMBER 9 to TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013 VOLUME 109 ISSUE 38
Serving the students of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. M noa.
V O I C E
www.kaleo.org
S av e f o o d CTAHR professor studies new way to preserve food DANIELLE G ORMAN Staff Writer University of Hawai‘i at M ā noa associate professor Soojin Jun, Ph.D., received a grant to study a new high-tech way of preserving food for storage and shipping. Jun works in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources’ Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences and wanted to do a research project to show the loss of quality in food items caused by freezing and thawing during storage and transportation, which leads to waste and a decrease in economic value. The project aims to ensure food security and sustainability in Hawai‘i and the
Pacifi c Basin. A three-year $500,000 Improving Food Quality and Value grant was awarded to Jun and co-principal investigator Peter Berkelman, Ph.D. Berkelman is also an associate professor in the School of Engineering. The grant was given through the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Jun said the proposed technology could have an impact on the majority of food industries and business sectors in dealing with raw and frozen food products. The new technology would ensure food quality and freshness during the storage period. “Fresh produce or tropical fruits as well as grass-fed beef products can be exported fresh and unfrozen during sur-
face transportation,” Jun said. “This will help local farmers and entrepreneurs turn their raw food materials into profitable value-added food products, therefore contributing to a signifi cant economic gain for the local society.” Jun said he worked with student Jin Hong Mok, who has helped him with the designing and optimization of the prototyped supercooling device since January 2012. “(Mok) provided excellent quality of preliminary data to make our USDA proposal the most compelling case so that it could be awarded through the nationwide competition environment,” Jun said. Jun said the consequences of freezing and thawing are the signifi cant problem on the quality of food products.
“During the freezing process, water crystallization can result in irreversible damages to tissue structures,” Jun said. “When a polar liquid (i.e. water) is exposed to an external electric fi eld, it undergoes polarization that re-orientates and vibrates water molecules.” According to Jun, water is diamagnetic, which may develop a magnetic dipole moment in quick response to an applied magnetic field, leading to rearrangement of water molecules. “Thus, combination of these two field strengths would effectively interrupt critical ice nucleation in food matrices and extend the supercooling status of foods even at subzero temperatures,” Jun said. Continued on page 2