Food processing

Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food for consumption by humans or animals. The food processing industry utilises these processes. Food processing often takes clean, harvested or slaughtered and butchered components and uses these to produce attractive and marketable food products. Similar process are used to produce animal feed.

Examples

Following are common food processing techniques:

removal of unwanted outer layers, such as potato peeling or the skinning of Peaches
Chopping or slicing, of which examples include potato chips, diced carrot, or candied peel.
Mincing and macerating
Liquefaction, such as to produce fruit juice
Emulsification
Cooking, such as boiling, broiling, frying, steaming or grilling
deep frying
Mixing
Addition of gas such as air entrainment for bread or gasification of soft drinks
Proofing
spray drying

Extreme examples of food processing include the delicate preparation of deadly fugu fish, preparing space food for consumption under zero gravity, winemaking, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets.

History

Food processing dates back to the prehistoric ages when crude processing incorporated slaughtering, various types of cooking, such as over fires, smoking, steaming, oven baking), fermenting, sun drying and preserving with salt. Foods preserved this way were a common part of warriors and sailor's diets up until the introduction of canned food. These crude processing techniques remained essentially the same until the advent of the industrial revolution.

Modern food processing technology in the 19th and 20th century were largely developed to serve military needs. Nicolas Appert developed a vacuum bottling process to supply troops in the French army with food, which would eventually lead to tinning and then canning by Peter Durand in 1810. Although initially expensive and somewhat hazardous due to lead used in the cans, canned goods would later become a staple around the world. Pasteurization, discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1862 was a significant advance in ensuring micro-biological safety of food.

In the 20th century, World War II, the space race and the developing consumer society in the developed world furthered the development of food processing with advances such as spray drying, juice concentrates, freeze drying and the introduction of artificial sweeteners, colorants, and preservatives such as sodium benzoate and saccharine. In the late 20th century products such as dried instant soups, reconstituted fruits and juices, and self cooking meals such as MRE food ration were developed.

Benefits

Benefits of food processing includes toxin removal, preservation, improving flavor, easing marketing and distribution tasks, and increasing food consistency. In addition, it increases seasonal availability of many foods, enables transportation of delicate perishable foods across long distances, and makes many kinds of foods safe to eat by removing the microorganisms. Modern supermarkets would not be feasible without modern food processing techniques, long voyages would not be possible, and military campaigns would be significantly more difficult and costly to execute.

Modern food processing also improves the quality of life for allergics, diabetics, and other people who cannot consume some common food elements. Food processing can also add extra nutrients.

Drawbacks

Food processing can lower the nutritional value of some foods. Some preservatives added or created during processing such as nitrites or sulfites may cause adverse health effects on some consumers. In addition, high quality and hygiene standards must be maintained to ensure consumer safety and failures to maintain adequate standards can have serious health consequences.

In general, fresh food that has not been processed other than by washing and simple kitchen preparation, may be expected to contain a higher proportion of naturally occurring vitamins, fibre and minerals than the equivalent product processed by the food industry. However fresh materials are more liable to early spoilage and are often unsuited to long distance transportation from source to shelf. Fresh materials, such as fresh produce and raw meats, are also more likely to harbour pathogenic microorganisms (e.g. Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses.

Industries

Food processing industries and practices include the following:

Prominent Companies

External links

Other sources

Fábricas de alimentos, 9th edition (in Spanish)
Nutritional evaluation of food processing,
Food preservation 2nd edition, by Normal W. Desrosier

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