Food technology is the application of food science to the selection, preservation, processing, packaging, distribution and use of safe foods. Related fields include analytical chemistry, biotechnology, engineering, nutrition, quality control and food safety management. Basically, the study of how microorganisms interact with food, food microbiology focuses on bacteria, molds, yeasts and viruses. Areas of particular importance for product development are food safety and quality.
Food safety is concerned with preventing pathogens in food. It is almost impossible to eliminate microorganisms from any food, but many steps can be taken to slow their growth or inactivate them. What food science is doing in terms of food safety is developing highly sensitive and rapid techniques to identify pathogenic microorganisms and the toxins they produce in foods, and to develop packages and processes that inhibit their growth and reduce their survival rate. Not all microorganisms are harmful, but some cause food spoilage.
The key to controlling spoilage is to kill as many bacteria as we can without also killing the quality of the food in which they reside. Food microbiology is one of the most important fields of food science when it comes to product development, especially in this era of litigation. When designing a development plan for a new product, it is essential to consider the microbial quality of each component and how that may affect the overall quality of the product, and to determine how to process the product so that it has a sufficient shelf life. When it comes to product developers, food engineers develop the concepts that processors use to convert raw materials into safe and durable food.
Engineers may not play a direct role in menu development, but processors do. How an ingredient is processed can have a dramatic effect on the flavor, color, safety and shelf life of foods. Consider high-pressure processing (HPP) and its effect on the fresh fruit and vegetable juice industry. HPP is a non-thermal or “cold” pasteurization process developed to allow the production of fruit and vegetable juices without any of the harmful effects of heat treatments, such as changes in flavor, texture or color.
The nutritional profile of juices is not altered by the process, so there is no need to fortify them. Nutritionists often associate thermal processing with detrimental effects on the nutritional quality of foods, but not always. Recent work at Cornell University showed that heating tomatoes raises the level of a phytochemical called lycopene that fights cancer. Winsight is a leading B2B information services company focused on the food and beverage industry, providing market information and intelligence to business leaders in every channel where consumers buy food and beverages (convenience stores, grocery retailers, restaurants and services).
of food (non-commercial) through the media. events, data products, advisory services and trade shows. What this means is that every food or drink you buy in a supermarket has been influenced by a food scientist. Food microbiology is the study of microorganisms that inhabit, create, or contaminate food, including the study of microorganisms that cause food deterioration.
Food science is generally offered at universities with land grants or universities that have an agriculture department. Sensory science uses people to describe and evaluate the flavors, textures, appearance, and other attributes of food. It is similar to biochemistry in its main components, such as carbohydrates, lipids and proteins, but also includes areas such as water, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, food additives, flavors and colors. Academic Food Science programs integrate the disciplines of food chemistry, food microbiology, food engineering, manufacturing and processing, as well as sensory and consumer science, at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels.
When conventional careers were blocked, they found alternative employment as instructors in home economics departments and used it as a basis to lay the foundations for many modern food science programs. Food science is decently based on chemistry and much of the attention will be focused on biochemistry because they are dealing with macromolecules such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins on a daily basis. Foodomics greatly helps scientists in an area of food science and nutrition gain better access to data, which is used to analyze the effects of food on human health, etc. Food chemistry is the study of the chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of food.
In most situations in my life, every time I tell someone that I'm a food scientist, they look at me strangely and tell me what the hell that is. This is widely used with nutrition labels in the small nutritional facts of each food product. . .
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