Freezing, Canning, Drying and....Lintonizing?!?!

A company called Viands Concerted has announced a new technique for preserving vegetables which apparently allows for a much higher quality product at reduced savings. As the website explains,

"(This is) a new manufacturing process that makes fully cooked vegetables appear as though they were freshly cut by literally changing the cellular plant structure within the vegetable. The patent-pending process called Lintonizing^TM is an all-natural and preservative free method aimed at providing higher quality vegetable and potato products for the food industry, including food service, food processing and retail markets."

Then the website goes on to tout the many beneficial aspects of Lintonizing, not the least of which include:

"The Lintonizing^TM process, in addition to being gentle and reinforcing the plant cell structure, provides phenomenal benefits to potato and vegetable processing, including:"

    

· Cooked fries (ready for frying) can be looped into a knot without breaking

    

· Cooked potato chip slices (ready for frying) can be doubled over without breaking (no  fines)

· Little or no acrylamide formation in deep fried potato products

   

· Fully cooked broccoli smells fresh out of the bag even after 30 days of refrigeration

 

· Fully cooked and roasted bell pepper slices have the crunch of fresh peppers

 

In one sense, these folks may well be onto something. For as we've written extensively here and elsewhere, the trend toward all things fresh in food circles continues unabated. Of course, the critical issue here is whether or not consumers will buy into the freshness aspect when staring down into a plate of knotted french fries or bendable potato chips. Until then, we'll reserve judgment.