Processed Food

History shows us that humans have always processed the meals they eat. Obviously, as technology has improved these processing methods have grown to be more and more advanced but the earliest people ground, rolled, mixed and cooked their very own food. The processing of meals are an activity that's exclusive to people. Animals generally will eat their food because they find it with hardly any attention given to the actual way it looks or feels. Some apes are very well known to use tools to achieve access to nuts and certain kinds of fruit. This really is not seen as an method of preparing food.

Food processing has traditionally been accomplished for two basic reasons. The very first is to make the meals easier to digest and also the second would be to preserve the meals for use in harsher times ahead. These kinds of basic food processing have resulted in the advance of things like traditional meat pies, haggis, sausages, cheese along with other milk-derived dairy produce, pickled foods, and drinks such wine and spirits.

Historically food processing was performed by agricultural folk for example farmers, breadmakers, cheese makers, distillers, millers etc. which led to delicious fresh produce that kept the earnings on the farm as well as in the farming communities where it belonged.

In addition to easing digestion, preservation and enhancing taste, food processing can also be used to increase a food's nutrient value. Some types of traditional bread making are recognized to neutralize anti-nutrients in grain which boosts the availability of minerals. Similarly the advance of yoghurt from milk helps make the nutrients more available and simple for the human digestive tract to deal with.Now, obviously, food processing is really a massive industry conducted with an enormous scale using specialist food processing equipment. Smaller farm shops still exist, selling locally grown and sourced produce, but they're usually run like a side business since they're unable to contend with supermarket prices. What many people don't know is the fact that most factory and industrial food processing destroys most of the nutrients in food instead of increasing them, and in some cases can make food a lot more difficult for the body to digest.

In addition, sugar, hydrogenated oils, additives, synthetic ingredients etc. are generally used in modern food manufacturing processes. Many of these ingredients are detrimental to the health but they are necessary tools within the food processing industry. Government initiatives and good food campaigns are starting to educate people from the health benefits of organic and locally produced foods, however for many people the choice to use processed meals are more related to convenience and value than health. Nearly all supermarkets are in possession of a dedicated organic foods section, such may be the demand for non-processed produce, however the supermarket shelves continue to be very much covered with mass processed convenience food. This trend of favouring convenient mass-produced food continues to be blamed for any huge increase in the number of clinically obese people in western society in the last 20 years. In order to combat this alarming statistic, pressure has become being placed on food manufacturers to enhance the vitamins and minerals of the food they produce.

Food processing equipment

Food processing machinery