9.1 Introduction The most common dietary problems in developed countries are due mainly to over nutrition. The incidence of overweight, obesity and adult onset-diabetes is increasing steadily. Cancer is now the most common cause of death in many developed countries. The most common cancers are breast, lung, bowel and prostate, which are virtually absent in some developing countries. However, even

Vitamins, by their definition, are essential to health and have to be obtained from the diet on a regular basis because, with the exception of vitamin D, they cannot be produced by the body. In terms of medicine and nutrition, our knowledge of vitamins is relatively recent. Although James Lind discovered an association

Frying, especially deep fat frying, has become the most popular food prepara￾tion technology during the last five decades. The reason is that the preparation is easy even for less experienced cooks, the procedure is rapid, and the finished product is highly palatable. In the frying procedure, fat is the medium of heat transfer. Two main frying methods exist, namely shallow frying and deep frying

Extrusion cooking is a relatively recent form of food processing. Forcing material through a hole is the process of extrusion. Sausage extruders were devel￾oped in the nineteenth century as simple forming machines. Eventually pasta was produced in extruders. Flour and water were added at one end of the machine

The domestication of different grasses, all members of the monocotyledonous family Gramineae, was a seminal event in the history of mankind. The cultiva￾tion of these plants led to the generation of agricultural surpluses. These in turn enabled societies in different parts of the world to make the transition from a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle to one based on communities living in per￾manent settlements

The taming of fire, permitting the thermal processing of vegetable foodstuffs in particular, extended enormously the number of natural products that could be used as foods by humans and gave a tremendous impulse to the extraordinary dif￾fusion and development of the human population in almost every region of the world (De Bry, 1994). Foodstuffs can be roughly divided in two classes, those that are or are not edible in their raw form. The most important naturally edible foods are meat and milk, which are heated mainly for eliminating dangerous microorganisms, and some fruits, used by plants to attract animals for diffusing

A. Trichopoulou and A. Naska, University of Athens 2.1 Introduction Documenting and monitoring dietary patterns are priorities in nutritional epi￾demiology, in the planning of national food and nutrition policies and in the evaluation of nutrition education strategies. Early efforts in documenting dietary patterns were focused on identifying the specific nutrients that may be respon￾sible for effects on people’s health, but recently research has expanded towards studying patterns of food intake. Food data are often derived from:

碳水化合物的概念、结构和分类，食品中主要的碳水化合物； 单、双糖在食品应用方面的物理性质及化学性质； 淀粉的特性在食品中的应用：糊化作用、老化作用，果胶物质的特性及其在食品中的应用，食品中的其它多糖。 碳水化合物在食品加工储藏过程中的变化及其对食品营养，感观性状和安全的影响

食品在加工、贮藏过程中，经常会发生褐、红、蓝、绿、黄等各种变色现象，本质上都是酶促或非酶 促化学反应的结果。其中最普遍、最重要的是褐变。在面包、糕点、咖啡等食品的焙烤过程中，褐变产生 诱人的焦黄色和特征香气；而在水果、蔬菜加工、贮藏过程中，褐变则影响外观、降低营养价值和风味等

一、食品化学研究的内容 食品化学是用化学的理论和方法研究食品本质的科学,是食品科学,也可以说是应用化学的一个重要分支。它通过对食品的营养价值、质量、安全性和风味 特征的研究,阐明食品的组成、性质、特征、结构和功能,以及食品成分在贮藏 加工过程中的化学和生物化学变化,乃至食品成分与人体健康和疾病的相关性