Food safety and quality are two issues that are particularly relevant to product development. Basically, the study of how microorganisms interact with food, food microbiology focuses on bacteria, molds, yeasts, and viruses. The areas of special importance for product development are food safety and quality. Food safety is concerned with preventing pathogens in food.
It's 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 the field of food safety is developing fast and highly sensitive techniques to identify the pathogenic microorganisms and the toxins they produce in food, and to develop packaging 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 harming 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. As far as product developers are concerned, food engineers develop the concepts that processors use to convert raw materials into safe and durable food. In the development of menus, engineers may not play a direct role, but processors do.
The way an ingredient is processed can have a dramatic effect on the taste, 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 pasteurization 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 taste, 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 harmful effects on the nutritional quality of food, but not always. Recent work at Cornell University showed that heating tomatoes increases the level of a cancer-fighting phytochemical called lycopene. Winsight is a leading B2B information services company focused on the food and beverage industry, providing information and market intelligence to business leaders on every channel that consumers purchase food and beverages (convenience stores, grocery retailers, restaurants and non-commercial food services) through media, events, data products, consulting services and trade shows. Food science brings together multiple scientific disciplines.
It incorporates concepts from fields such as chemistry, physics, physiology, microbiology and biochemistry. Food technology incorporates chemical engineering concepts, for example. Food science is a practical name used to describe the application of scientific principles to create and maintain a healthy food supply. Here you will understand how to use machines and chemicals to break down food into its basic components and measure its contents.
To help consumers make informed choices about the food they eat, the IFT has developed IFT Food Facts to provide consumers with news that they can use in their daily lives. It is believed to be another step towards a better understanding of the development and application of technology and food. Most curricula offer a variety of professions including quality control, food safety, sensory analysis, food chemistry, food analysis, food law, food law, food engineering, packaging, processing, and product development. Product developers build on this research and are working to incorporate these foods or their specific bioactive compounds into new products.
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. The physical chemistry of food is the study of physical and chemical interactions in foods in terms of physical and chemical principles applied to food systems, as well as the application of physicochemical techniques and instruments for the study and analysis of foods. Food scientists and technologists are versatile, interdisciplinary and collaborative professionals in a profession at the crossroads of scientific and technological advances. I would say that if you're a food technologist, whatever your educational background, which I think is a confusing title in and of itself, you can call yourself a food scientist.
Food technology is the application of food science to the selection, preservation, processing, packaging, distribution and use of safe foods. The main American organization in the field of food science and technology is the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), based in Chicago, Illinois, which is the American organization that is a member of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFOST). Food microbiology is the study of the microorganisms that inhabit, create, or contaminate food, including the study of the microorganisms that cause food spoilage. This discipline also covers how products change under certain food processing techniques and ways to improve or avoid them.
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