New line intersection procedure for the equivalent point method of thermalevaluation

A new Line Intersection (LI) procedure for determining sterilization value (F-o) and quality or nutrient retention (cook value: C-o) was developed usi ng the original Equivalent Point Method (O-EPM), Analysis of 30 conventiona l and 5 simulated thermal curves showed excellent agreement between F-o val ues determined by the new LI method and the traditional General Method (GM) , The new LI method performed better than the O-EPM in yielding more accura te estimates of F-o and C-o values as shown by the relatively low errors, T he difference between F-o (GM) and F-o (LI) expressed as percent of F-o (GM ) for conventional curves ranged from -0.01% to 0.78% while that between F- o (GM) and F-o (O-EPM) ranged from -0.18% to 38.78%. Similar results were o btained for C-o values.