Contributing to Food Security and Sovereignty: Promoting Sustainable Production, Using as an Example the Standardization of the Conditions of a Low Energy Consumption Process for the Dehydration of Strawberry Flakes in México

The problems caused by bad eating habits are one of the leading health problems in North America, which is why great efforts have been made to improve the quality of people's food through food products that provide a high nutritional value. The strawberry is a fruit with excellent nutritional properties and has been used to complement different foods. However, this fruit has a short postharvest life, which generates significant losses; thus, there are shortages in some seasons of the year. Therefore, developing sustainable methodologies that increase this product's shelf life is vital. In this work, the standardization of infrared-assisted dehydration of strawberry flakes was carried out, varying the temperature and time of the process to obtain a more durable product that preserves its nutritional properties. The results show that the best process conditions are for a time of 1:30 h. at a temperature of 80 °C, which allows obtaining a dehydrated product with a considerably longer shelf life, improving the storage possibilities and availability of this fruit, contributing to thus with food security and sovereignty, facilitating the trade of this product.