Food Production GapFill

Food  processingpreservationproductionpreparation is the process of growing crops and rearing animals, and then changing them into delicious, appetising meals.

Many  reasonablerawraisedradical products are edible, but still have to go through some  secondaryprimaryquaternarytertiary processing before they can be actually eaten; for example, strawberries have to be washed and potatoes have to be cooked. Most foods are transported from their point of origin (where they are grown or reared) before being processed. Food is processed to ensure it’s safe to eat, lengthen its  windowfloorshelfdoor life, maintain its  environmentaleconomicnutritionalprofitable value, make it convenient to use and assure its variety and affordability. Food processing includes two main stages:

• Primary processing, which makes the food usable
•  SecondaryTertiaryQuaternaryPrimary processing, to make food more convenient to use and lengthen its shelf life even more

Primary processing of food consists of all actions taken to make raw produce ready to use or eat, and usually does not affect the features or nutritional value of food products in a significant way. Primary processing of plant-derived foods includes actions taken after the produce has been harvested or picked, such as washing, peeling, trimming, slicing, bagging, labelling and many other actions taken to make sure the plant-derived food products can be eaten or used for further processing. Primary processed fruit and vegetables are usually sold raw, dried or  meltedcookedwashedfrozen, either whole or in pieces.

Secondary processing of food allows it to be used to make new products, which are significantly different from the ingredients they were made from. This may be turning flour and eggs into a cake, turning fruit into  lambhamspamjam or turning milk into yogurt. The main methods of secondary food processing include: heating, salting, smoking and fermentation to name a few.

The choice of preparation and cooking methods is important in maintaining the nutritional  valueprofitcostgains of foods. While some of the processes are beneficial, others lead to vitamin and mineral loss.

Primary processing of foods usually doesn’t change the structure of a given food, but there are exceptions. Milling wheat leads to vitamin and mineral loss because the inside of the grain is separated from the bran. Most of the vitamins in grains are located close to the bran, so they are lost during the process. This is known as the  grindingextensionextractionretraction rate of flour, which means how much of the original wheat grains are in flour once milled and processed. Wholemeal flour has a 100% extraction rate due to no bran or germ being removed before milling, meaning it has a higher nutritional value than white flour, which has a 70-72% extraction rate. 

Another example of how primary processing affects food is sterilisation of milk. Sterilisation is conducted under very  mediumaveragehighlow temperatures, which kill all the  yeastbacteriamouldsugar and spores in the milk. During the process, proteins begin to denature and, if the milk is heated for too long, the Maillard reaction can occur between particles of sugar and  vitaminscarbohydratesfatprotein, and as a result change the colour, smell and flavour of milk. The same process occurs when sugar is removed to make lactose-free milk.