QUALITY OF FOOD

Conspicuous consumption

2009-10-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Conspicuous consumption
Ostentation or conspicuous consumption, means some people’s desire to provide prominent visible evidence of their ability to afford luxury goods.

Status as value refers to the active manipulation of one’s own consumption behavior in order to influence others.

Status seeking may be understood as a response to a perceived gap between a present state and some ideal state.

This leads to a motivational state which is strongest among social groups chronically affected by status anxiety.

Dining in a celebrity chef’s restaurant may be motivated as much by the wish to be seemed at a fashionable venue as about the food.

Choosing consumption experiences to project the sort of image one wants to create is part of impression management.

In attribution theory, the causes of behavior can be ether dispositional or situational.

Attribution theory clearly status related consumption is situational motivated.

Food and drinks choices are means of signaling and re-enforcing, one’s status on a more or less ongoing basis, both within the family and in wider context.

Indeed, a cursory scan of the shopping trolleys of customers in a supermarket usually allows wide ranging inferences to be made about their status in society.

Status displays include what one does not consume as well as what one does, to the extent that avoidance products may become more important to status construction that the products one does consume.

Individuals may avoid certain supermarkets or manufacturer’s brands of food or they may boycott foods from some country in order to make a political point.

They may reject products from intensively reared animals on the grounds of animal cruelty and so on.

The motivational for specific consumption behaviors can change with time, so that’s a situationally motivated behavior can eventually become dispositionally motivated.

When this happens, consumption value ceases to be other-oriented and derives instead from the re-enforcement of self image.

For example, an odivdual may have become ociditioend to enjoying excellence in cosmuner products and may have stated to identify woth the lifestyle associated woth them.
Conspicuous consumption

Sensory Testing

2009-09-26T23:15:00.000-07:00

Sensory Testing
Sensory testing utilizes one or more of the five senses to evaluate foods.

Taste panels, comprising groups of people, taste specific food samples under controlled conditions and evaluate them in different ways depending on the particular sensory test being conducted.

This is the only type of testing that can measure consumer preference and acceptability.

When it comes to public opinion of a product, there is no substitute for tasting by individual consumers.

In addition to a taste –panel evaluation, objective tests can be established that correlate with sensory testing, which give an indication of consumer acceptability, but this may not always be sufficient.

In the development of new foods or when changing an existing product, it is necessary to determine consumer acceptance directly and objective testing is not sufficient, even though it may be a reliable, objective indication of food quality.

Sensory methods may be used to determine:
*Whether foods differ in taste, odor, juiciness, tenderness, texture and so on.
*To what extend food differ
*To ascertain consumer preferences and to determine whether a certain food is acceptable to a specific consumer group.

Three types of sensory testing are commonly used, each with different goal.

Discrimination or difference tests are design to determine whether there is a difference between products, descriptive tests determine the extent of difference in specific sensory characteristics and affective or acceptance/preference tests determine how well the products are liked or which products are preferred.

There are important differences between these types of tests. It is important to select the appropriate type of test so that the results obtained are able to answer the question being asked about the products and are useful to the manufacturer or product developer.

The appropriate tests must be used under suitable conditions in order for results to be interpreted correctly.

All testing must be carried out under controlled conditions, with controlled lighting, sound (no noise), and temperature to minimize distractions and other adverse psychological factors.
Sensory Testing

Food Spoilage and Physical Factors

2009-09-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

Food Spoilage and Physical Factors
Food spoilage can also be caused by physical factors, such as temperature, moisture and pressure acting upon the foods.

Moisture and heat can also produce hydrolytic rancidity in fats; in this case, fats are split into free fatty acids, which may cause off odors and rancid flavors in fats and oils.

Excessive heat denatures proteins, breaks emulsions, removes moisture from food and destroys nutrients such as vitamins.

However, excessive coldness, such as freezing, also discolors fruits and vegetable, changes their texture and/or cracks their outer coatings to permit contamination by organisms.

Food under pressure will be squeezed and transformed into unnatural conformation.

The compression will likely break up the surface structure, release degradative enzymes, and expose the damage food to exterior microbial contamination.

Many health officials consider physical factors to include such things as sand, glass, wood chips, rat hair, animal urine, bird droppings, insect parts and so on. These things may not spoil the food, but they do present hazards.

Some these foreign substances do lead to spoilage.

Furthermore, insects and rodents can consume and damage stores foods and insect can lay eggs and leave larvae in the foods, causing further damage later.

Such foods are no longer reliable since they contain hidden contaminants.

The attacks of the by insect and rodents can also contaminate foods further with microbial infections.
Food Spoilage and Physical Factors

Sanitary Food Handling – Facilities

2009-09-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

Sanitary Food Handling – Facilities
Hygienic food handling requires appropriate equipment and supplies.

Food handling and food processing equipment should be constructed according to regulations of the appropriate regulatory agency.

Welfare facilities should be clean, neat, well lighted and conveniently located away from production areas.

Restrooms should have self-closing doors. It is also preferred that hand washing stations have foot – or knee-operated faucets that supply water at 43 degree C to 50 degree C.

Remotely operated liquid soap dispensers are recommended because bars and soap can increase the transfer of microorganisms.

Disposable sanitary towels are best for drying hands.

The consumptions of snacks, beverages and other foods, as well as smoking should be confined to a specific area, which should be clean and free of insects and spills.
Sanitary Food Handling – Facilities

Food Adulteration

2009-08-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Food Adulteration
Food commodities have always been vulnerable to fraudulent admixture or adulteration with cheaper inferior materials.

Such practices are revealed within countries when food materials are transported from the countryside to the urban centers.

In international trade, such practices were noted in the eighteenth century when the UK and other European nations were importing species oils oilseeds, honey, tea, coffee and such materials form their colonies.

Since wide variations in quality were suspected, the customs and excise department in England established analytical laboratories to check the purity of these commodities.

Valuable research work was carried out by these laboratories to investigate the problem of adulteration, to lay down standard specification and to devise analytical methods to detect and quantitate adulteration.

Frederick Accum, German Scientist wrote in 1820 that ‘Indeed it would be difficult to mention a single article of food which is not be met with an adulterated state and there are some substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine’.

He has cited common cases of adulteration which are revealing. These included black pepper with gravel, leaves, twigs, paper dust, linseed meal, pea flour, sago, rice flour; cayenne pepper with vermillion (mercury sulphide), ochre (earthy mixture of metallic oxides and clay), turmeric; essential oil with oil of turpentine, other oil alcohol; vinegar and lime juice with sulphuric acid; coffee with roasted grains, occasionally roasted carrots or scorched beans and peas, baked horse liver.

A similar situation existed in other countries as well. At times, the adulterants were toxic as in the cases of mercuric sulphide, ochre, sulphuric acid mentioned above or the presence of lead chromate in turmeric and dimethylamino azobenze or butter yellow, a hepatocarcinogen, in butter.

Even now, the situation may not be any better in certain countries. The adulterators are quite innovative although innovative although unscrupulous.
Food Adulteration

Sanitary Food Handling – Role of Employees

2009-07-16T03:25:00.000-07:00

Sanitary Food Handling – Role of Employees
A protective sanitation barrier between food and the sources of contamination should be provided during food handling.

Barriers include hairnets, disposable gloves, mouth guards, sneeze guards and food packaging and containers.

Food processing and foodservice firms should protect their employees and consumers from workers with disease or other microorganisms of public health concern that effect the wholesomeness or sanitary quality of food.

This precaution is important to maintain a good image and sound operating practices consistent with regulatory organizations.

In most communities, local health codes prohibit employees having communicable disease from handling foods or participating in activities that may result in contamination of food or food contact surface.

Responsible employees should exercise caution in selecting employees by screening unhealthy individuals.

Although some areas no longer require health cards because of the expense involved, many local health department require all employees who handle food to be examined by a physician who will issue a health card only to healthy individual.

Selection of employees should be predicted upon these facts:

*Absence of communicable diseases should be verified through a country health card or a physician’s report.

*Applicants should not exhibit evidence of a sanitary hazard such as open sores or presence of excessive ski infections or acne.

*Applicants who display evidence of respiratory problems should not be hired to handle food or to work in food processing or food preparation areas.

*Applicants should be clean and neatly groomed and should wear clothing free or unpleasant odor.

*Applicants should successfully complete a sanitation course and examination such as that provided by National Restaurant Association.

Sanitary Food Handling – Role of Employees

Problems of Chemical Residues

2009-07-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

Problems of Chemical Residues
A variety of chemical have been in use in modern agrohorticultural and animal husbandry practices and these chemicals may remain in the plant crops or animal foods at concentrations that may be hazardous to the consumer.

Thus excess use of inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers in the soil may cause a rise in the level of nitrite or nitrate in the vegetative plant portions especially in the leafy vegetables.

Weedicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides and sprouting inhibitors of diverse chemical nature are used in farm practices and pesticides and fumigants in storage warehouses.

Residues of these compounds or their metabolites may survive in the foods.

Anabolic steroids or their analogues and antibiotics have been used for fattening meat animals and poultry and milk releasing hormones have been used in dairy animals.

Such treatments may leave residues in the flesh or milk. A close monitoring of the residue levels has now become necessary in view of the liberal usage of these treatments.

In many countries, tolerances have been laid down for these chemicals in specific foods.
Problems of Chemical Residues

General Perspectives on Quality and Value

2009-06-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

General Perspectives on Quality and Value
Most foods, especially those based on whole plant and animal tissue, have a highly complex structure and composition.

Chemical, physical and/or microbiological processes take place in foods during storage, which may alter some of these attributes.

Food structure and composition translate into sensory attributes and other performance aspects for the consumer.

What all this means is that, theoretically at least, hundreds of different attributes could be defined for individual foods.

Clearly, to specify food quality in those terms is impractical; more impracticably, it is inappropriate because quality does not refer to the totality of attributes a product possesses.

Instead, the quality concept introduces a filtering device through which attributes are weighted in terms of their contributions to user satisfaction with the product.

Therefore, the definition of product quality incorporates subjective elements.

Customer satisfaction means the customer’s perception of requirements having been fulfilled. Other models of quality include, in addition, the requirements of the other stakeholders in a process or product.

The value and the satisfaction consumers derive from a food product is therefore closely related to its quality.

In fact, both terms appear throughout the academic literature, although their use by different authors is not consistent.
General Perspectives on Quality and Value

Food Contaminants

2009-05-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

Food Contaminants
During their journey from farm to consumer food commodities are likely to be exposed to a multitude of hazards that may lead to contamination by dust, dirt weeds, mechanical injury, physicochemical changes accelerated by heat, light, metal ions, contamination or spoilage due to microorganisms insects and rodents or biochemical changes brought about by enzymes that may be endogenous or contributed by the invading biological agents.

Food commodities are thus likely to undergo significant alteration. Even though the consumer reference is undoubtedly for farm fresh foods and farmers and traders have been striving to keep up farm fresh image of food commodities, the question remains how fresh?

Amongst food grains particularly oilseeds, which are seeds high in essential oils, the entry of weed seeds at harvest, especially if harvesting is mechanical, is a serious contamination of the weed seeds harbor toxicants like Crotolaria, Datura and Argemone for instance.

Not only fruits and vegetables but even seeds may undergo mechanical damage. In the case of high moisture commodities, this will most likely be followed by microbial infections and spoilage.

In fat rich commodities such as oilseeds and nuts, oxidative chemical changes are most likely to be catalyzed by exposure to air, elevated temperature, humidity, light and metal salt contaminants leading to rancidity.

Such oxidative reactions affect essential oils and oil bearing material adversely.

Microbial spoilage of foods and health hazards to consumers through bacterial and fungal toxins and enteric disease are especially associated with high moisture foods, animal foods in particular.
Moisture pick-up or loss depending on the relative humidity (RH) is another change that significantly affects the quality.

Many foods undergo staling on storage: bread and coffee are good examples. In many countries, where feasible, specifications have been laid down for food commodities indicating the tolerances with respect to changes to their quality.
Food Contaminants

Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality

2009-05-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality
The international recognition of systems for safety and for food quality management has resulted in the need to adopt terminology that can be interpreted in a uniform and consistent manner.

The systems for food safety and for quality management that have been adopted by international organizations such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have been based on fundamental principles developed by recognized experts or recognized scientific or professional organizations.

As a result, there is now standardized vocabulary in the field of food quality assurance.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.

The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations.

International Organization for Standardization ISO is the world largest standards developing organization.

Between 1947 and the present day, ISO has published more than 17500 International Standards, ranging from standards for activities such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, to medical devices, to the newest information technology developments.
Recognition of Food Safety and Food Quality

Requirements for Hygienic Practices

2009-04-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

Requirements for Hygienic Practices
Management must establish a protocol to ensure hygienic practices by employees.

Supervisors and managers should set an example for employees by their own high levels of hygienic and food health while conveying the importance of these practices to the employees.

They should provide proper laundry facilities for maintenance of cleanliness though clean dressing rooms, services m, and welfare facilities.

Management should require employees to have a pre-employment physical examination to verify that they are in good physical, mental and emotional health.

This is an excellent opportunity to impress the important of good hygienic habits on a new employee and to emphasize how employees “shed” Salmonella and Shigella.

Furthermore, those with skin infections may be identified before they handle food. All employees who work with food should be checked regularly for signs of illness, infection and other unhealthy conditions.

Several countries have a legal requirement for pre employment health examinations and require than they be repeated at regularly intervals.

However, this regulation has been challenged because of the expense of routine medical examinations, the difficulty of administering these plans, and because a clear relationship between food handlers and food disease has not been established.
Requirements for Hygienic Practices

Food Safety and Consumers

2009-02-23T18:03:00.001-08:00

Food Safety and Consumers
Food safety is of paramount importance both for suppliers and consumers of food.

Food safety assurance is therefore the primary objective for all quality assurance schemes, both statutory and voluntary consuming considerable company resources.

The Food Safety Act is designed to protect consumers from unsafe food as well as from food fraud, but food safety and other food standards cannot be separated completely.

Mislabeled products can constitute safety hazards as in the case of sheep’s milk (declared) yoghurt containing a proportion of (undeclared) cow’s milk. This may threaten the life of a consumer with a serious cow’s milk allergy.

Generally, in the eyes of consumers, food safety is an implicit quality attribute, i.e. they would not specifically demand “safe” food in shop or restaurant.

However, where a consumer does not have trust in their supplier, they will try to take charge of food safety, safety assurance themselves.

A customer at a butcher’s may decide not to purchase cooked meats there, e.g., if the shop fails to demonstrate effective procedures for the prevention of cross contamination of those meats via raw meats.

Aspects of food quality besides safety are largely determined by individual preferences. The range and diversity of foods available to consumers today is considerable.

In fact, there are few foods that cannot be obtained by the individual with the time and money to pursue and acquire them.

This means in principle, each consumer can be matched with his or her ideal foods. Whilst most would not go to such lengths, most people have their own individual mental lists of products that they would avoid under all circumstances.

As far as individual supermarkets are concerned, some might question exactly what level of product differentiation there really is.

On the other hand, it may be difficult for consumers with strongly held ethical values to choose food accordingly, e.g., meat from what they would perceive as cruelty-free production systems.

In this case, the difficulty lies with the poor state of the consumer information and advice systems that exist in the food area, and with the associated issue of food labeling.
Food Safety and Consumers

Total Quality Management

2009-01-30T23:18:00.000-08:00

The Role of Total Quality Management
An effective sanitation program is a segment of total quality management (TQM), which must be applied to all aspects of the operations within an organization.

Total quality management applies the “right first time” approach. The most critical aspect of TQM is food safety. Thus sanitation is an important segment of TQM.

The successful implementation of TQM requires that management and production workers be motivated to improve product acceptability.

Furthermore, all involved must understand the TQM concept and possess skills to maker the program successful.

Quality Assurance for Effective Sanitation
Quality is the degree of acceptability. Component characteristics of quality are both measurable and controllable.

A sanitation Quality Assurance program can achieve the following goals:

Identify raw material suppliers that provide a consistent and wholesome product
Make possible stricter sanitary procedures in processing to achieve a safer product, within given tolerances
Segregate raw materials on the basis of microbial quality to allow the greatest value at the lowest price.

By tradition, the food industry has applied quality assurance principles to ensure effective sanitation practices, among them, inspection of the production area and equipment for cleanliness.

If evidence of poor cleanup is reported, necessary action is taken to correct the problem.

More sophisticated operations frequently incorporate use of a daily sanitation survey with appropriate checks and forms. Visual inspection should include more than a superficial examination, because a film buildup that can harbor spoilage and food poisoning microorganisms can occur on equipment.
Total Quality Management

Food, Quality, Value and Consumer

2009-01-13T04:36:00.000-08:00

Food, Quality, Value and Consumer
Conceptually, “quality” and “value” lie at the interface between the consumers mind processes and the object of the external world. Both are concerned with a consumer and an object and with interaction taking place between them.

Food value is slanted more towards the consumer and food quality towards the food, but there is an overlap. This interface, although critical is only one of several that are relevant to an understanding of consumer behavior in the area of food quality.

“Value” and the associated concept of “value”, and “consumer behavior” draw on several academic disciplines, both in the social and the natural sciences, for their theoretical underpinnings; yet there is no unified view of food quality and the consumer.

In fact, there is often a distinct lack of understanding, which tends to prevent effective communication between food professionals raised in the different academic traditions, and which can lead to difficulties in the business environment.

Food companies must understand the mental process that will cause consumers to develop perception of the finished products. Such perceptions engage with consumers’ motivational systems and therefore directly affect choices and other food related behavior.

As for marketing and communication strategies for novel foods and technologies, it is crucial that proper account is taken of the beliefs and attitudes of both consumers and the wider community.

Consumers are the final link of food supply chains, i.e., they are the end users. This does not mean that, in each case, the food shopper is the person who will consumes the food in the sense of eating it. For example, foods may be bought for other family or household members and as gifts.
Food, Quality, Value and Consumer

Food Contamination

2008-12-23T17:47:00.000-08:00

Food Contamination
Because the same nutrients in foods are also the same nutrients microbes need for their growth, food spoilage is inevitable. However, most infectious agents do not multiply on foods, but use them as a vector to gain entrance to the human body.

Food Poisoning results from many sources. Some of them include the following: Bacillus cereus, Campylobacter jejuni, Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Yersinia enterocolitica. Infection from them usually causes the same basic symptoms of acute gastroenteritis, abdominal discomfort and pain, and diarrhea, but symptoms vary -- from mild gastric distress to death -- depending on the type of bacterial infection. Transmission is usually passed via the fecal/oral route with the ingestion of the pathogen on contaminated food.

Foodborne diseases affects roughly seventy-six million people each year in the US, which is more common and deadlier than bacterial meningitis, toxic shock syndrome, and the flesh-eating strep combined. Typical bacteria that cause most of the epidemics include Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Shigella. More recently, such mutant strains as Escherichia coli 0157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Cyclospora cayetanensis, and caliciviruses are becoming more commonplace.

Water contamination is usually because of the presence of three bacteria and are indicators of fecal contamination -- E. coli, Clostridium perfringens, and enterococci. In the case of water contamination by Klebsiella pneumoniae, it should not be assumed that the contamination came from a fecal source. The bacterium is also found in soil and runoff can contaminate water.

Meat held at room temperature often invites bacteria from the family Enterobacteriaceae. This also happens with strains of Staphylococci, micrococci, and aerobic Gram-positive spore-forming bacilli. Refrigeration suppresses these microbes, but can allow the growth of such other organisms as pseudomonas. Eating raw meats, fish, and milk is becoming more of a hazard and should be avoided. Suspect, too, are salads prepared in restaurants where meats and vegetables share a common surface during preparation.

Color can often indicate the type of microbe involved in the spoilage:

Black spots on meat are the result of Cladosporium species.
White spots are from Sporotrichum carnis.
Yellow or green spots form as a result of the Penicillium species.
A rainbow effect, often seen on bacon and fish, is caused by a spoilage bacteria known as Photobacteria that can break down ATP to produce visible light. After a couple of days, this bacterium can grow sufficiently to enable raw fish to glow in the dark!

Spoiled milk, as opposed to fermented products, is caused by such capsulated organisms as Lactococcus cremoris or Enterobacter aerogenes, leaving the milk to form unpleasant strands. Various strains of clostridium can also cause milk to spoil. Contaminated ice cream in Minnesota in 1994 caused an estimated quarter of a million people to become ill. Despite this, it took a full three months before the Salmonella-type bacterium was tracked down and appropriate action taken. This is not an inspiring record designed to instill confidence in the public health system. On the other hand, when a contaminant is suspected, much food is wasted in an effort to track down a few questionable samples.

Stores of rotten black potatoes that turn into an oozing mess are the result of an Erwinia contamination.

A liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, can be contracted by humans, mainly from eating watercress harvested from beds where infected snails live.

Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive bacillus capable of growing at temperatures of 0°C (32°F) and lower. It is relatively heat-resistant, having been isolated from pasteurized products. Another reason for it being an easy microbe to be passed on is its ability to remain on the hands for long periods of time -- at least eight hours -- and is not easily removed by conventional handwashing.

Foods associated with this microbe are soft cheeses, pates, and raw vegetable dishes. Pre-cut foods are most at risk for developing listeria contamination. Most people remain relatively unaffected, except for pregnant women and newborns, where often fatal cases of meningitis and/or septicemia develop.

Almost half of all food poisonings in Japan are caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a marine bacterium found off the coast there, as well as in America and southwest England. Almost all food poisonings have been the result of undercooked fish. Such was the case in an air flight from Hong Kong to the UK, where lobster salad was served. Fortunately, the new crew, picked up in India enroute, did not eat any of the salad as all others aboard were ill by the time the flight ended. Obviously, the incubation period is relatively short -- the time it took to fly from Hong Kong to the UK.
Food Contamination

Quality Characteristics of Raw Milk

2008-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Quality Characteristics of Raw Milk
Good raw milk quality is the basis for the production of high quality dairy products. The raw milk quality is controlled by the following characteristics:

Level of nutrient and reagents

Chemical physical characteristics

Level of total plate count and composition of the flora, e.g. level of spore formers, coliform, psychotrophs and thermosresistant microorganisms in the total plate count as well as level of somatic cells (cell count)

Presence or absence of pathogenic organisms such as those that cause tuberculosis, brucellosis or mastitis

Presence or absence of disease such as pus particles or toxins

Presence or absence of deleterious substances such as inhibitors or other foreign substances

Taste and flavor

Cleanliness of milk

Quality Characteristics of Raw Milk

Aromatic profile

2008-12-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

Aromatic profile
Much have been published on the history, nature and processing of herbs, species and other aromatic plant materials used as food flavorings but one subject which has received little attention is that their sensory characteristics.

What do they actually smell and taste like? What quantitative and qualitative contribution can one expect them to give to the total flavor complex of any product which they are used? How can one describe the observable differences in aroma and flavor? The absence of any really informative articles covering this important aspect of flavoring is not surprising when one realizes how extremely difficult it is to achieve meaningful descriptions or well known but purely sensory effects (for example flavor of banana).

Certain descriptive terms have become well established by use and understood by the majority of these like to be called upon to evaluate aromatic materials, generally, however, the mere reading of a descriptive profile gives little idea of the effect obtained. It is fair to say that no color-of flavor can yet be describe verbally in any language in such a way that the uninitiated layman immediately recognize and visualize the material and be able to identify it when presented with a sample.

Even the individual words used do not necessarily convey the correct impression. For instance, one may have a reasonably clear understanding of the word “aromatic” as something which has both a hedonic and nonhedonic connotations; i.e., it is both pleasing and sweet. In the other hand, the term “green’” which are also very frequently used in describing aromas and flavors, is far less precise, ranging from the effect one associates with freshly cut grass to that of damp leaves or even of freshly cut garden herbs; all of which are quite different.

This problem is accentuated when one has to translate terms into other languages. Frequently, a single world replacement is not understood may, in fact, give totally wrong impression. In most cases one has to carry out an evaluation at first hand in order to appreciate fully the differences in aromatic character or create a picture of the total profile.

Aromatic profile

What are allergens?

2008-12-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

What are allergens?
Allergens are substances that cause the immune system to trigger and act against itself. Normally, this condition happens when foreign bodies such as bacteria enter the human body. However, innocent and harmless bodies (proteins) such as pollen, peanuts, milk, penicillin may not be recognized by the immune system and continue to function as a harmful foreign body. Yet, wasps and other insects produce allergens as a defense mechanism.

A food allergy is triggered when natural substance is mistaken for a hostile invader, causing immune systems to mobilize to repel the invader. F00d allergies are mediated by IgE antibodies to protein-a characteristic shared with other allergens such as those present in hay fever (an acute allergic nasal condition) an wasp-sting reactions. The severity of food allergy symptoms varies from life threatening reactions when exposed to food proteins that are allergens to which they are sensitized, to less severe reactions such as skin irritation and breathing difficulties. Since no cure is available for food allergies. Avoidance is the only preventive measure available to allergic consumers.
What are allergens?

What is the Meaning of Fresh Foods?

2008-11-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

What is the Meaning of Fresh Foods?
The word fresh in the marketing of foodstuff has become something of a mantra in the past decade. However what the manufacturer and retailer mean by fresh and what the consumer understands are sometimes very different. We understand that the fresh bread has been baked within the last 48 hrs and fresh milk came from the cow within a similar period of time. So can fruit juice (the raw material could be weeks old), just because it has been pasteurized and required chill chain distribution be justifiable called ‘fresh’? Also, ‘fresh’ fruit juice could have 30 day best before life: is it still ‘fresh’ after 30 days? ‘Fresh’ fruit and vegetables could be several days old at the point of sale.

‘Fresh’ has three connotations to the consumer: the first is a about how recently it was derived from its source, the second is about minimal processing and the third about its eating quality. Pasteurized milk could be less than 24 hrs from the cow when place on sale. UHT milk when processed is no older than pasteurized milk but no one would describe UHT milk, even on the day of processing, as fresh. In a supermarket, fresh fish means raw fish: it was probably caught several days ago and has been frozen.

The consumer does not experience age of product or type of process: the consumer will buy fresh foods on the basis of a superior eating quality, often expect to pay a premium and accept a short shelf life. For the industry to offer both better value and greater convenience in the fresh foods market, we need to better understand that the consumer experiences as fresh food and how they discriminate ‘fresh’ from ‘processed’ foods. It is better be able to offer the fresh foods eating experience that is both good value and convenient.
What is the Meaning of Fresh Foods?

Quality Assurance and Sanitation Programs in Food Industry

2008-11-04T17:49:00.000-08:00

Quality Assurance and Sanitation Programs in Food Industry
Since the late 1970s, the food industry has emphasized an organized sanitation program that monitors the microbiology of raw ingredients in production plants and the wholesomeness and safety of the finished products, in an effort to maintain or upgrade the acceptability of its food products.

As consumers become better informed and more sophisticated, it is even more vital for the food industry to develop an effective quality assurance (QA) and sanitation program. The efforts of regulatory agencies in the field of sanitation and food microbiology have been responsible for the food industry’s implementation of voluntary quality assurance programs. Food scientists have also had a positive impact on quality assurance programs because many of these professionals have joined various companies in the food industry. Their efforts have been instrumental in the adoption and/or upgrading of quality assurance programs for the organizations they represent.

In its initial stages, quality assurance was primarily a quality control function, acting as an arm of manufacturing. It has now evolved to formidable force within executive structure of large food firms and has emerged into broad spectrum of activities. A quality assurance program provides the avenue to establish checks and balances in the areas of food safety, public health, technical expertise, and legal matters affecting food manufacturing firms. Activities related to food sanitation include sanitation inspections, products releases and holds, packaging sanitation, and product recalls and withdrawals.

A quality assurance program that emphasizes sanitation is vital to the growth of a food establishment. If foods are to compete effectively in the market place, established hygienic standards must be strictly maintained. However, it is sometimes impractical for production personnel to measure and monitor sanitation while maintaining a high level of productivity and efficiency. Thus, an effective quality assurance program should be available to monitor, within established priorities, each phase of the operation. All personnel should incorporate the team concept to attain established sanitary standard, ensuring that food products in the market place are safe.
Quality Assurance and Sanitation Programs in Food Industry

Raw Materials for the Markets

2008-10-22T21:50:00.001-07:00

Raw Materials for the Markets
Both conventional breeding and more particularly the promise of direct genetic modification of genotype offer the potential for changing the marketing dynamic of fresh produce, milk and meat.

Fruit and vegetables marketed to the consumer are still predominantly producer led; what is offered is what can be grown. Quality criteria reflect, not what is desired but the limits within which a product is acceptable or tolerated. By using advanced breeding techniques the food industry would want the potential to match a fruit or vegetable to the consumers’ preference and the consumers’ mode of using the product. This would be true of fresh produce for manufacture, too. The dream is to be able to specify the ideal quality criteria of a fruit or vegetable and know that a grower is able to match the characteristics accurately and consistently. The desirable characteristics would include flavor, sweetness, texture, nutrient content and durability in storage. No doubt the growers would want to specify such characteristics as yield drought tolerance, insect resistance and ease of harvest.

Similar scenarios can be imagined for milk and meat. As the market demand for butter fat, casein and whey protein moves, one or other component is in surplus, another is dearth. Although some changes in gross composition have been achieved through conventional breeding and feed regimes, could milk composition be more closely tailored to market demand by a better understanding of feed conversion or by altering the genotype?

In the livestock market, the demands for the different cuts of meat must be managed. Chickens yield a fairly steady ration of leg to wing to breast meat. However, the market does not necessarily reflect this balance. Beef muscle is selected from different parts of the animal according to the desire for leanness, tenderness and flavor, but the market for hind and fore quarter does not necessarily reflect the fat that for every forequarter there is exactly one hindquarter.
Raw Materials for the Markets

Pest Control of Fruits and Vegetables

2008-10-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Pest Control of Fruits and Vegetables
Insects, rodents, plant disease, and weeds can devastate food crops, and human history is filled with famines attributable to these scourges. Large scale agricultural production tends to increase the susceptibility of crops to these hazards. Pesticides are currently an integral component of an agricultural system that produces increased yields of fresh fruits and vegetables with good visual quality. Pesticides have become a major cost of production of fruit and vegetable farmers. The use of pesticides is associated with risks of increase pest resistance, environmental contamination, exposure to farm workers, and escalating costs. With mounting regulatory pressure on pesticides it is likely that fewer compounds will be available to the farmer and that these compounds will be available for only a few crops of high economic value.

Damage to fruits and vegetables by pests is not limited to loss of visual quality. Insects and rodents can inoculate plants in the field with microorganisms that can present a health hazard, particularly if the product is not properly washed and is eaten raw. These dangers are compounded if untreated animal wastes such as manure, a potent source of human pathogens, are used for fertilization, particularly with vegetables grown close to the ground. Mold, which can be held in check by fungicide, can infect fruits and vegetables products. Mycotoxins produced by molds, such as patulin in apple products and ochratoxin in citrus fruits, present additional concern. The potential danger of these naturally occurring mycotoxins has been documented but the practical implications of decreased fungicide use are not clear.
Pest Control of Fruits and Vegetables

Loss of Quality

2008-09-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Loss of Quality
Just as important as selecting for food quality is the prevention of the loss of quality. The most pervasive problems are probably control of staling and prevention of moisture migration.

Staling as a process is well understood and much progress has been made in understanding how to delay the staling process in wheat flours. However, cooked rice stales and becomes hard within 24 hrs of cooking; arresting the staling process would allow cooked rice of good quality and practicable shelf life to be offered. Much remains to be understood to control staling so that it can either be stopped when it has reached as desired level or completely inhibited.

Moisture migration limits the shelf life of many products where a high moisture region is in contact with a low moisture region. The manufacturer is unable to give consumer the experience of a fresh baked product. The pastry is designed to be hard and brittle to contrast with the moist and malleable meat content. Around the meat, a high moisture jelly is injected after baking. Within a few days, moisture migrates from the jelly into the pastry and the case becomes soft, losing flavor and texture contrast with the filling.
Loss of Quality

Food Quality and Manufacturing

2008-09-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

Food Quality and Manufacturing
The quality of a consumer product has two very different components. The manufacturer may believe that he is increasing the quality of a product by adding more meat to a meat pie or using fresh not frozen vegetable in formulating a quiche. However is the consumer able to discriminate between standard and quality improved product and are they motivated by the proposition of such a quality improvement? This is the essence of the challenge when conducting sensory analysis: what are the sensory characteristics which translate into a perception of quality by the consumer that may increase propensity to purchase? Although some work has been done in this area, it is still poorly understood. Ideally what is needed is a framework for product developer that does not need to be continually verified by expensive consumer research.

Along the food chain, manufacturers want to understand how to select raw materials that will impart the desired quality characteristics to the finished product. Although some raw materials characteristics can be linked, there is a general lack of understanding of how subtle differences in raw material can profoundly affect product quality.

Despite decades of research, there is still much to be learnt about impact of subtle changes have an effect is certain but molecular basis for this is far from clear. Understanding what is going on at a molecular level would allow either for a more informed selection of raw material or for an intervention in process that was dependent on the raw material feed quality.
Other examples include understanding what it is that causes milk functionality to change during spring flush. Despite little change in the gross composition, the functionality can change dramatically. Why?

When we tender steak, is there a better way of selecting it other than specifying which cut or measuring a textural characteristic? Is there a biochemical marker that translates into tenderness? Can we have meat that is both tender and flavorsome?
Food Quality and Manufacturing

Environment for Sensory Evaluation

2008-09-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

Environment for Sensory Evaluation
One of the most important activities in any laboratory in the sensory assessment of samples, be they of aromatic chemicals, spices, natural extracts, flavorings or products containing these materials based on his reactions to their smell and flavor.

The methods used are frequently taken for granted as being part of normal experience but there are certain well based precepts that should be followed if the evaluation is to be effective. Perhaps the most important and yet the least observed if these is the need for complete concentration and an absence of distractions. The environment in which sensory judgment is reached is the most important. The essential requirements and optimum layouts of facilities suitable for sensory assessment of a wide variety of raw materials and end products also is the important factor.

Ultimately, the facilities provided depend on the budgetary importance that any company or organizations places on this respect of its technical program. Even if the facilities fall short of the optimum, it is usually possible to ensure that the test conditions are as natural as possible, that the assessor is at ease but not the over comfortable, and is quiet and free from external distractions, other provisions, such as air-conditioning and controllable lighting though desirable, are not strictly essential.

All too frequently, even, these minimum conditions are not available and much evaluation is carried out at the laboratory bench with other normal routines progressing in the immediate vicinity. This sort of environment is far from satisfactory for the making of a considered judgment in sensory attributes particularly where highly flavorful products are involved.
Environment for Sensory Evaluation