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

Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) may be defined as ‘the enclosure of food products in gas-barrier materials, in which the gaseous environment has been changed’ (Young et al, 1988). Because of its substantial shelf-life extending effect, MAP has been one of the most significant and innovative growth areas in retail food packaging over the past two decades. The potential advantages and disadvantages of MAP have been presented by both Farber (1991) and Parry (1993), and summarised by Davies (1995) in Table 16.1

‘Genetically modified food’ has become the object of a heated debate by con￾sumer activists and replaced irradiation’s leading role as a target. In this debate the term irradiation is frequently confused with radioactive contamination, espe￾cially after the Chernobyl accident. The allegation is made that the nuclear indus￾try needs food irradiation badly in order to find some use for the waste from

Generally, the effects of microwave energy can be classified as either ‘macro￾scopic’ or ‘microscopic’. When the energy is used for heating food the effect is macroscopic and results in a specific heating pattern. However, the causes of certain features are due to microscopic effects, i.e. to physics at the atomic level

Food quality, including colour, texture, flavour and nutritional value, is of key importance in the context of food preservation and processing. Colour, texture and flavour refer to consumption quality, purchase and product acceptability whereas the nutritive values (i.e. vitamin content, nutrients, minerals, health￾related food components) refer to hidden quality aspects. In conventional thermal processing, process optimisation consists of reducing the severity of the thermal process in terms of food quality destruction without compromising food safety

The continuous-flow heat process is a thermal heat-hold-cool process where the foodstuff to be treated is pumped in continuous flow through heat exchanger systems where it is heated to a desired temperature, held at that temperature for a pre-determined time, then cooled to around ambient temperature. After heat treatment, the product is then packaged in an appropriate manner. This process

Preventing the loss of vitamins and nutrients in foods is a paramount concern at all stages of food processing involving heating. One example of the critical need for retaining vitamins is to nourish hospital patients who require vitamins to recover from the stress of illness or surgery.1 This issue has invoked recent studies