Methods for infiltrating sweet ingredients or useful ingredients for human body into fruits or vegetables and apparatus used in the methods

A method of infiltrating sweet ingredients or useful ingredients for the human body into fruits or vegetables, which is a method of processing fruits or vegetables using an immersion tank (20) of which side surfaces and the bottom are all sealed, wherein the fruits or vegetables are processed while immersed in an aqueous solution of useful ingredients, comprises:

• a preparation stage of supplying the aqueous solution of the useful ingredients into the immersion tank (20) such that all of the fruits or vegetables contained in the immersion tank 20 are immersed in the aqueous solution of the useful ingredient;
• a taking-in and sealing stage of, after performing the preparation stage, opening a pressure cover (11) of a pressure chamber (10) to take the immersion tank (20) with all of the fruits or vegetables and the aqueous solution of the useful ingredients into the pressure chamber (10), and then closing the pressure cover (11) to seal the pressure chamber;
• a low-vacuum entry stage of, after the taking-in and sealing stage, operating a vacuum pump (40) to reduce the pressure such that the inside of the pressure chamber (10) enters a low vacuum state in a range of specific pressure;
• a low-vacuum maintenance stage of maintaining the low vacuum state at a specific pressure, which is reached as a result of performing the low-vacuum entry stage for a certain time;
• an atmospheric pressure restoration stage of, after the low-vacuum maintenance stage, allowing external air to flow into the pressure chamber (10) to allow the inside of the pressure chamber (10) to be restored to an atmospheric pressure state;
• an atmospheric pressure maintenance stage of, after performing the atmospheric pressure restoration stage, maintaining the condition inside the pressure chamber (10) restored to an atmospheric pressure state for a certain time;
• and
• an opening and taking-out stage of, after performing all stages up to the atmospheric pressure maintenance stage, opening the pressure cover (11) and taking out the immersion tank (20), in which all of the fruits or vegetables and the aqueous solution of the useful ingredients are contained,
• wherein the specific pressure applied to the low-vacuum entry stage ranges from 140 to 500 mbar,
• a maintenance time in each of the low-vacuum maintenance stage and the atmospheric pressure maintenance stage is in the range of 0 to less than 10 seconds, and
• the low vacuum entry stage, the low-vacuum maintenance stage, the atmospheric pressure restoration stage, and the atmospheric pressure maintenance stage are performed one or more times.