Food processing is a
set of methods and techniques used to transform raw food ingredients into
consumable food. Food processing can be as simple as cutting up some vegetables
to prepare a salad, or as complex as manufacturing aTwinkie![httpwwwassoc-amazoncomeirtfooducate-20las2o1aB001UE7DHI]()
in
multiple processing facility.
From the early days
of food processing, the primary goal was to extend the life of a foodstuff, by
acting as a preservative. This helped balance humans’ need to eat daily with
nature’s trend to provide crops only during certain times of the year. To this
day, extending shelf life is one of the most important reasons food
manufacturers add so many weird sounding ingredients to products.
One of the first
forms of food processing, dating back to BC, was the salting of meats as a
means of preservation. Sugar was introduced much later as a preservative for
fruit, and thus the jam was born. Keeping food cold, either underground, or by
using ice, was an effective, if primitive method of preservation until the
ascent of ice boxes and recently electrical refrigeration.
In the early 19th
century, a new technology was introduced to vacuum bottles of food for French
troops. It would lead to the use of tin cans a decade later and thus the
canning industry was born.
Pasteurization,
another French invention from the mid 19th century, greatly improved the safety
of milk and milk products, as well as increasing their shelf life. (We won’t
get into the raw milk debate in this post).
It was only in the
industrialized 20th century, and more prominently after World War II, that a third
and crucial factor became the driving force behind food processing –
convenience.
With legions of moms
joining the work force, there was less time to toil in the kitchen, and a
demand for quick, easy to prepare foods skyrocketed.
Additional benefits of
food processing include lower prices to consumers due to the economies of scale
of mass manufacturing, increased availability of a wide variety of foods, and a
consistency in taste, texture, and mouth feel.
With so many
advantages to food processing, one may ask why is almost every other American
so bearish on processed foods?
Here are a few
reasons:
The further a food
product is from its natural form, the less it retains its healthful nutritional
properties. Vitamins evaporate, minerals are leached, and fiber is long
forgotten.
True, the decrease
in nutrients has led to enrichment and fortification, but these add only a
small number of nutrients back to a product, where hundreds of others are lost
in translation from the original orange to the orange drink in a plastic
bottle.
Increasing shelf
life requires the use of preservatives, whether natural ones such as salt, or
artificial chemicals that have more specific functions (mold inhibitors,
bacteria killers, antioxidants, antimicrobial chemicals, etc…). Some of
these preservatives have adverse side affects on some or all human populations.
In order to make
food more palatable and attractive, additives are used. Food colorings are a
huge category of additives. The color of a food is an important psychological
consideration. But in many cases, the color of the processed product is not as bold as expected by the consumer.
Take strawberry yogurts. Almost all manufacturers add some sort of coloring,
whether a natural red color such as beet juice, a natural but quirky bug juice,
or artificial Red #40. Despite studies that have shown correlation between food
colorings and cognitive problems in children, the food industry uses them
because they are cheaper than natural sources.
And since cost has
become a driving factor in consumer consideration, food companies are
constantly on the lookout for cheaper manufacturing techniques and cheaper
source ingredients. Anything that can be made in a lab is cheaper than a
naturally sourced ingredient. Substituting quality ingredients with cheaper or
inferior standbys is the only way to keep prices down. Don’t even ask what
parts of animal carcasses go into your baloney.
Farm subsidies in
the US have made corn and soy products very cheap. Guess what – soy oil and
high fructose corn syrup are found in many processed items. They add the fat
and sweet components that make so many junk foods tasty to us. Salt is natural
and cheap, but excessive consumption causes hypertension and other health
problems.
We haven’t talked
about processing that takes place before the “ingredients” are harvested (GMO
crops, hormones and antibiotics to for livestock, etc..), but these too are
affecting the food we eat, in ways that science has yet to get a full grasp of.
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