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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.
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Beer fermenting at a brewery.
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.
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 is 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.
Microwave oven
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 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 allergists, diabetics, and other people who cannot 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 (e.g. Salmonella) capable of causing serious illnesses.
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. 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.
When designing processes for the food industry the following performance parameters may be taken into account:
The introduction of HACCP standards during production and distribution reduce the risk of contamination of the products.
Food processing industries and practices include the following:
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.
Preserved food.
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". Levenstein, H: "Paradox of Plenty", pages 106-107. University of California Press, 2003 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.
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