Water, which is a major constituent of many food products, has a mater
ial influence on their transformation processes, characteristics and s
tability. NMR and MRI techniques, which provide information on the con
tent and the dynamic state of water in complex environments, are parti
cularly adapted to characterizing the interactions between the product
and the processing variables. This paper presents some examples of st
udies using NMR and MRI that have been carried out in the dairy produc
ts industry.