Food Safety and Toxicity

John De Vries, John De Vries

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000550405
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medizin
• Subtopic: Toxikologie

Food Safety and Toxicity examines the many problems and changes in food safety and toxicity. From a natural science viewpoint, this informative book takes on challenging and important topics impacting food researchers, regulators, producers, healthcare providers, educators, and consumers. It is organized into three main sections. Section 1 explores the relationship between the origin or formation of potentially toxic compounds and their eventual ingestion. Section 2 picks up with information on the potential consequences of this ingestion, and Section 3 concludes with the discussion of prevention and minimization of health risks. By emphasizing food safety, rather than nutritional toxicology, this book puts food hazards and their health risks in true perspective. It also explores the complementary roles of toxicology and epidemiology in studying associations between nutrition and adverse health effects and in assessing toxicological risks from food components in a deliberate manner. Food Safety and Toxicity, with clear, non-technical language and valuable insight, brings you up-to-date on the significant food safety issues confronting us today.

Part 1AFrom raw materials to consumer: chemical, microbiological and technological aspects of food

DOI: 10.1201/9780367803049-1

chapter oneIntroduction to the raw materials of food

DOI: 10.1201/9780367803049-2

M.M.T. Janssen and A.G.J. Voragen

• 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.1.1 History of food manufacturing
  • 1.1.2 From raw materials to consumer
• Reference and reading list

1.1 Introduction

Food is of fundamental importance to life. It is necessary for development and functioning, including maintenance and reproduction. On average, man consumes 30 tons of food during his lifetime; this is consumed in many basic dietary versions, varying at local, national, and international levels. Also, diet is related to social class. It is easy to see the difference in character between french fries and stew on one end of the scale and delicacies such as pâté de foie gras, filet steak, and quail eggs at the other. However, digestion splits all these foods into the same basic nutrients. The differences lie in quality, shape, and flavor only.

Basically, food is a mixture of chemicals. Usually, food components are distinguished in four categories: nutrients, toxins of natural origin, contaminants, and additives. The nutritients account for more than 99.9% of the food. The main classes of nutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals, and all of them may pose toxicological risks to the consumer.

In the course of evolution, through trial and error, man has learned to handle those foods that would cause acute adverse effects. Further, he has developed processing methods to eliminate or reduce toxicity in a number of cases. Cooking and other common means of food preparation effectively destroy many of the major toxic components, particularly those found in important plant foods.

Most of the food is treated in some way to improve its shelf life, texture, palatability or appearance. It would be difficult to change this situation. So, it is important to know what happens to the various food components on the way from raw material to consumer. The food industry is a large, continuously expanding industry. Although there are people who would like to do without industrially processed food and go back to nature, this is not possible on a large scale from a socio-economical point of view. The majority of the population depend on the food manufacturing industry for their daily food supply.

1.1.1 History of food manufacturing

Since the time when man settled in one place and became dependent on cultivated crops and animal husbandry for their food, the need for storage and preservation was evident. Grain and root crops could be kept reasonably well during winter, but products of vegetable, fruit, or animal origin could not be stored for long. Through experience, man learned to preserve perishables by drying, smoking, pickling, candying, and fermenting. Gradually, food manufacturing became a craft with the emphasis still on preservation. People began to specialize in food manufacturing for other people, without understanding the (bio)chemical and microbiological mechanisms underlying the processes involved. How to bake bread, to cure ham, or to make cheese has been known since ancient times, but it was not until 1857 that Pasteur could clarify the metabolism of the microorganisms involved. In 1912, Maillard first published on the browning reaction between sugars and amino acids, now known as the Maillard reaction.

In the 19th century, industrialization set in, and society changed with it. The population began to grow and large industrial areas developed. People became separated from the sites of growth, manufacturing and preservation of their food. This development was possible because new food preservation and production methods were developed, and old and new methods were made suitable for application on a large industrial scale. For instance, in 1809 Nicolas Appert discovered that food can be preserved by heat treatment. At first, the food was heated in glass vessels. About 50 years later tins were introduced in the U.S., while in that same period, Nestle started the production of condensed milk and powdered milk by concentrating milk through evaporation. The development of methods for the extraction of sugar from sugar beets and the production of a butter substitute from vegetable oils and cheap animal fats, i.e., margarine, also took place in the 19th century.

Initially, these industrial processes were rather unsophisticated and poorly manageable. The sensoric quality of the products was often unsatisfactory, as they lost some of their color, flavor, and texture. New insights in organic and analytical chemistry, as well as in biochemistry, the nutritional sciences, microbiology, toxicology, and technology have been applied to industrial food processing since its first steps. The modern food industry is capable of manufacturing a wide variety of safe food products of high nutritional value and good quality, with great efficiency.

1.1.2 From raw materials to consumer

Food processing can be regarded as the conversion of raw agricultural material into a form suitable for eating. The first step is collecting or harvesting the raw material. This is primarily carried out by the producer. The time of harvesting is influenced by the ultimate purpose of the raw material; quality and ripeness are important for the efficiency and result of food processing. The raw material is transported as rapidly as possible to the site of ...