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Thawing experiments with the model food system: The frozen gel based model food system was allowed to thaw in ambient environment and inside an insulated box of dimensions (49.5 × 39.4 × 30.2) cm. The experiment with the insulated box was conducted to analyze the effect of natural convective airflow in the headspace. Temperatures at four known locations, along the axis of the gel sample, as shown inFig. 2B, were recorded.