State diagram of foods: Its potential use in food processing and product stability

State diagram is a map of the different states of a food as a function of water or solids content and temperature. The main advantage of drawing map is in identifying different states of a food, such as freezing point and glass transition, which helps in understanding the complex changes when food’s water content and temperature are changed. It also assists in identifying food’s stability during storage as well as selecting suitable conditions of temperature and moisture content for processing. This paper provides an overview and critical assessment on the basic concepts of the state diagram with their terminologies, selected measurement techniques, and their use. Glass transition alone could not be considered as generic rules for food stability criteria since numbers of instances, such as pore formation, diffusion, microbial stability, non-enzymatic browning, other factors or mechanisms play important role. However, it is definitely one of the factors affecting the stability, and a future challenge to combine the glass concept with other mechanisms or factors.