THERMAL PROCESSES | Pasteurization
Thermal pasteurization is a classical method of food preservation that reduces the number of unwanted vegetative cells of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms in foods, extending food shelf life, promoting food safety, and allowing the reduction and elimination of added chemical preservatives to foods. Pasteurization recently was redefined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “any process, treatment, or combination thereof, which is applied to food to reduce the most resistant microorganism(s) of public health significance to a level that is not likely to present a public health risk under normal conditions of distribution and storage.” Therefore, this definition includes nonthermal pasteurization processes such as high-pressure and high-intensity pulsed electric fields.