Everything about Food Processing totally explained
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 utilizes 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.
Food processing methods
Common food processing techniques include:
Extreme examples of food processing include the delicate
preparation of deadly fugu fish or preparing space food for consumption under
zero gravity.
Benefits
More and more people live in the cities and are far away from the production areas of food. In many families both husband and wife are working and therefore there's little time for the preparation of food based on fresh ingredients. The food industry offers products that fulfill many different needs: From peeled
potatoes that only have to be boiled at home to fully prepared
ready meals that can be heated up in the
microwave oven within a few minutes.
Benefits of food processing include toxin removal, preservation, 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 micro-organisms. Modern
supermarkets wouldn't be feasible without modern food processing techniques, long voyages wouldn't be possible, and military campaigns would be significantly more difficult and costly to execute.
Modern food processing also improves the quality of life for
allergists,
diabetics, and other people who can't consume some common food elements. Food processing can also add extra nutrients such as
vitamins.
Processed foods are often less susceptible to early spoilage than fresh foods, and are better suited for long distance transportation from the source to the
consumer. Fresh materials, such as fresh
produce and raw meats, are more likely to harbour pathogenic micro-organisms (for example Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses.
Drawbacks
In general, fresh food that hasn't 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.
Vitamin C for example is destroyed by heat and therefore canned fruits have a lower content of vitamin C than fresh ones.
Food processing can lower the nutritional value of foods. Processed foods tend to include food additives, such as flavourings and texturizers, which may have little or no nutritive value, or be unhealthy. Some preservatives added or created during processing such as nitrites or sulphites may cause adverse health effects.
Processed foods often have a higher ratio of calories to other essential nutrients than unprocessed foods, a phenomenon referred to as "empty calories". Most junk foods are processed, and fit this category.
High quality and hygiene standards must be maintained to ensure consumer safety and failures to maintain adequate standards can have serious health consequences.
Processing food is a very costly process, thus increasing the prices of foods products.
Performance parameters for food processing
When designing processes for the food industry the following performance parameters may be taken into account:
Hygiene, for example measured by number of micro-organisms per ml of finished product
Energy consumption, measured for example by “ton of steam per ton of sugar produced”
Minimization of waste, measured for example by “percentage of peeling loss during the peeling of potatoes'
Labour used, measured for example by ”number of working hours per ton of finished product”
Minimization of cleaning stops measured for example by “number of hours between cleaning stops”
Trends in modern food processing
Health
Reduction of fat content in final product for example by using baking instead of deep-frying in the production of potato chips
Maintaining the natural taste of the product for example by using less artificial sweetener.
Hygiene
The introduction of HACCP standards during production and distribution reduce the risk of contamination of the products.
Efficiency
Rising energy costs lead to increasing usage of energy-saving technologies, for example frequency converters on electrical drives, heat insulation of factory buildings and heated vessels, energy recovery systems
Factory automation systems (often Distributed control systems) reduce personnel costs and may lead to more stable production results
Industries
Food processing industries and practices include the following:
Cannery
Industrial rendering
Meat packing plant
Slaughterhouse
Sugar industry
Vegetable packing plant
Prominent Companies
Archer Daniels Midland
Cargill
ConAgra
General Mills
Kraft Foods
Nestlé
Pescanova
Tyson Foods
Unilever
Wimm Bill Dann
History
Food processing dates back to the prehistoric ages when crude processing incorporated slaughtering, fermenting, sun drying, preserving with salt, and various types of cooking (such as roasting, smoking, steaming, and oven baking). Salt-preservation was especially common for foods that constituted warrior and sailors' diets, up until the introduction of canning methods. 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 was largely developed to serve military needs. In 1809 Nicolas Appert invented a vacuum bottling technique that would supply food for French troops, and this contributed to the development of tinning and then canning by Peter Durand in 1810. Although initially expensive and somewhat hazardous due to the lead used in cans, canned goods would later become a staple around the world. Pasteurization, discovered by Louis Pasteur in 1862, was a significant advance in ensuring the micro-biological safety of food.
In the 20th century, World War II, the space race and the rising consumer society in developed countries (including the United States) contributed to the growth of food processing with such advances 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.
Because the 20th century witnessed a rise in the pursuit of convenience, food processors especially marketed their products to middle-class working wives and mothers. Frozen foods (often credited to Clarence Birdseye) found their success in sales of juice concentrates and Swanson's "TV dinners". Processors utilized the perceived value of time to appeal to the postwar population, and this same appeal contributes to the success of convenience foods today.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Food Processing'.
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