Thermal processing is the most common treatment applied in the food industry.
Heating may improve food quality (by destroying microorganisms, inactivation of
enzymes, denaturation of enzyme inhibitors and destruction of toxins, etc.) and also improves the utilisation of valuable food components (e.g. improvement of digestibility).
However, heat treatment often causes undesirable secondary effects, frequently called processing damage.Interactions between the major components (proteins, lipids and carbohydrates) are very often induced by heating.