APPLICATIONS OF FRACTAL ANALYSIS TO FOOD STRUCTURE

Fractal analysis has been recently applied to the study of food struct ure. Fractal techniques can be particularly useful tools for character izing food morphology because the highly irregular structures of many food materials elude precise quantification by conventional means. Mea sured fractal dimensions also have been related to product functionali ty, processing history, or storage conditions. This paper explains the principle of fractal analysis and reviews the application of differen t fractal analysis methods to images surfaces and networks of food mat erials. (C) 1995 Academic Press Limited