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Question Summary	Can you help me find the specific heat of kiwi fruit?
Category	Cold Storage, Kiwifruit
E-news/newsletter Date	January 2009
Question	I have been trying to find the specific heat of kiwi fruit, can you help me with this information? (F.M.)
Answer	Specific heat of foods is used to calculate the heat that must be removed during initial cooling. It can be estimated with Siebel's formula: cp= 0.00800*a + 0.200, where “a” is the percent water content of the food. This formula is for cooling only and does not account for the heat removed during freezing. I looked up water content of kiwifruit on the web and found a paper listing the water content of Hayward variety equal to 85%. Using this number in the formula, kiwifruit has a specific heat of 0.88 Btu/pound-°F. To get specific heat in SI units (kJ/kg-°C) multiply this number by 4.19. – Jim Thompson