TRINIDAD MUNICIPAL COLLEGE

Poblacion, Trinidad, Bohol

GE ELEC 2 – ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Chapter 7: FOOD
Concept Notes:

FOOD
 Anything eaten by human beings and other animals and absorbed by plants so sustain life and health.
 The building blocks of food are nutrients which human can utilize:
o Carbohydrates – starches found in breads, potatoes, and pasta.
o Proteins – from nuts, fish, meats, eggs, milk, and some vegetables.
o Fats – found in most animal products (meat, lard, dairy products, fish).
o Vitamins – found in a wide variety of foods, except vitamin B12.
o Minerals – found in a wide variety of foods (calcium from milk and broccoli, iodine from
seafood, and iron from liver and green vegetables).
 Liquid consumed are principally water, ubiquitous in nature, and alcohol, found in fermented distilled
beverages.
 Food is needed both for energy (measured in calories or joules), and nutrients which are converted to
body tissues.
 Fiber is an aid to metabolism, and proteins provide energy for building cell and tissue structure.

FOOD CHAIN
 A sequence showing the feeding relationships between organisms in a particular ecosystem.
 A pyramid of numbers can be used to show
the reduction in food energy at each step of
the food chain.
 Energy in the form of food is shown to be
transferred from autotrophs or producers
(plants and photosynthetic micro-
organisms) to a series of heterotrophs or
consumers (herbivores and carnivores) and
decomposers, ready for recycling.
 In reality, however, organisms have varied
diets, relying on different kinds of foods, so
that the food chain is an oversimplification.
The more complex food web shows a
greater variety of relationships, but again
emphasizes that energy passes from plants to herbivores to carnivores.
 Environmentalists have used the concept of the food chain to show how poisonous and other form of
pollution can pass from one animal to another, threatening rare species. For example, the pesticide
DDT has been found in lethal concentrations in the bodies of animals at the top of the food chain, such
as the golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos.

FOOD IRRADIATION
 A technique used in food technology; the exposure of food to low level irradiation to kill micro-
organisms.
 Highly effective and does not make the food any more radioactive than it is naturally.
 Irradiated food is used for astronauts and immunocompromised patients in hospitals. Some vitamins
are partially destroyed, such as vitamin C, and it would be unwise to eat only irradiated fruit and
vegetables.
  The main cause for concern is that it may be used by unscrupulous traders to ‘clean up’ consignments
of food, particularly shellfish, with high bacterial counts. Bacterial toxins would remain in the food, so
that it could still cause illness, although irradiation would have removed signs of bacteria.
 Other damaging changes may take place in the food, such as the creation of free radicals, but research
so far suggests that the process is relatively safe.

FOOD SUPPLY
 The availability of food, usually for human consumption.
 It can be studied at scales ranging from individual households to global patterns.
 Since the 1940s, the industrial and agricultural aspects of food supply have become increasingly
globalized. New farming, packaging, and distribution techniques mean that the seasonal aspect of food
supply has been reduced in wealthier nations such as the USA and the UK.
 In some less developed countries, there are often problems of food scarcity and distribution caused by
climate-related crop failure.

FOOD TECHNOLOGY
 The application of science to the commercial processing of foodstuffs.
 Food is processed to make it more palatable and digestible, for which traditional methods include
boiling, frying, flour-milling, bread-, yogurt-, and cheese-making, and brewing; to prevent the growth of
bacteria, molds, yeasts, and other micro-organisms, or to preserve it from spoilage caused by the
actions of enzymes within the food.

o Preservation – enables food that are seasonally produced to be available all the year.
Traditional forms: salting, smoking, pickling, drying, bottling, and preserving in sugar.
o Refrigeration (below 5°C/41°F or below 3°C/37°F for cooked foods) – slows the process of
spoilage, but is less effective for foods with a high water content.
o Deep Freezing (-18°C/-1°F or below) – stops almost spoilage processes, except residual enzyme
activity, freezing works by rendering the water in foodstuffs unavailable to micro-organisms by
converting it to ice.
o Pasteurization – used mainly for milk, by holding it at 72°C/161.6°F, all disease-causing bacteria
can be destroyed.
o Ultra-heat Treatment – this process uses higher temperature than pasteurization, and kills all
bacteria present, giving the milk a long shelf life but altering the flavor.
o Drying – one of the oldest, simplest and most effective way of preserving foods, drying
concentrates the soluble ingredients in foods, and this high concentration prevents the growth
of bacteria, yeasts, and molds.
o Freeze drying – the foods are fast frozen, and then dried by converting the ice into vapor under
very low pressure, it is less damaging to food than straight dehydration in the sense that foods
reconstitute better, and is used for quality instant coffee and dried vegetables.
o Canning – the food is sealed in a can to prevent recontamination, relies on high temperatures
to destroy micro-organisms and enzymes.
o Pickling – utilizes the effect of acetic (ethanoic) acid, found in vinegar, in stopping the growth of
molds.
o Curing of meat – involves soaking in salt (sodium chloride) solution with saltpetre (sodium
nitrate) added to give the meat its pink color and characteristic taste.
o Puffing – a method of processing cereal grains, they are subjected to high pressures, then
suddenly ejected into a normal atmospheric pressure, causing the grain to expand sharply.
o Chemical treatments – are widely used, for example in a margarine manufacture, in which
hydrogen is bubbled into vegetable oils in the presence of a catalyst to produce a more solid,
spreadable fat.
o Food additives – chemicals introduced in processing that remain in the food which include
flavorings, preservatives, anti-oxidants, emulsifiers, and colorings.