Biotechnology in Food Processing
Biotechnology in Food Processing
Processing
and Preservation
• A range of technologies is applied at different levels and scale of operation in food processing
across the developing country. Low input and conventional technology includes drying,
evaporation, canning, dehydration, freezing, vacuum packing, osmotic dehydration, sugar
crystallization, etc.
• Processing assures food security by minimizing waste production and reducing the food chain
and increasing food availability and marketability.
• The purpose of food processing is to improve its quality and security.
• Food safety is a scientific discipline, which ensures that a particular food will not be the reason
of any injury to the consumer when it is manufactured and eaten according to its deliberate use.
• Biotechnology plays a pivotal role to improve the taste, flavors, color, texture, aroma of foods,
and its aesthetic and nutritional value; it is extensively used in many countries.
• Food undergoes fermentation by intentional inoculation or by natural fermentation and
eventually these desirable changes appear due to fermentation by microorganisms and/or their
enzymes, flavor, fragrance, food additives, and other value-added products.
• These high value products are used in food and nonfood use and also imported to other countries.
• Food processing involves various unit operations and techniques to convert raw, perishable, and
inedible products to consumable form with enhanced quality and shelf life.
• To produce a safe and high-quality food, the process and manufacturing protocol used in the
food processing must be of food grade, that is, free from health hazards.
• Safe food can be defined as the food that contains no harmful components that affects human
health and nutrition.
• Biotechnology is also widely employed as a tool in diagnostics to monitor food safety, prevent,
and diagnose food-borne illnesses and verify the origin of foods.
• Techniques applied in the assurance of food safety focus on the detection and monitoring of
hazards whether biological, chemical, or physical.
• Fermentation is generally used to make desirable changes in food.
• Fermentation can be carried out naturally or by intentional inoculation.
• Fermentation is the process in which carbohydrates are converted into alcohol and carbon
dioxide or organic acids when yeasts, bacteria, or a combination of them works on the food in
the absence of air.
• Fermentation is used to produce wine, beer, cider, leavening of bread, and lactic acid.
• Natural fermentation leads human history.
• The earliest evidence of fermentation dates back to 7000–6000 BC.
• It was an alcoholic beverage, made from fruits, rice, and honey in the Neolithic age in Chinese village of
Jiahu.
• Winemaking was prevalent in 6000 BC in Georgia.
• There was a jar containing traces of 7000 years old wine displayed at the University of Pennsylvania,
excavated from mountains in Iran.
• Also, the traces provided the proofs regarding the production of fermented products in Babylon c.3000 BC,
ancient Egypt c.3150 BC, pre-Hispanic Mexico c.2000 BC, and Sudan c.1500 BC.
• Louis Pasteur, French chemist was first to connect yeast to fermentation in 1856.
• He defined fermentation as respiration without air.
• Fermentation, useful for conversion of sugars and other carbohydrates into preservatives and other organic
acids, is the result of his research.
• Fermentation is generally used in food processing as it
• modifies diet by enrichment of flavors, aromas, and food texture;
• preserves food by production of acids;
• enriches food with protein, essential amino acids, and vitamins;
• removes antinutritional factors; and
• decreases process time.
• Vitamins play a vital task on human health by varying metabolic circumstances and supporting
the biochemical processes that liberate energy from foods during digestion, making of
hormones, blood cells, nervous-system chemicals, and other genetic materials.
• Deficiency of any vitamin can cause serious health disorder. Transgenic plants can be
manufactured using knowledge of biotechnology, with increased content of vitamins in certain
crops.
Vitamin-A
• Reduced form of vitamin A (retinal) is the source of rhodopsin.
• Rhodopsin is essential for vision and also employs to preserve epithelial and immune
cells.
• The retinoic acid is essential during the embryonic development and for homeostasis in
adult body and its scarcity develops the sign of night blindness to total blindness.
• Fruits and vegetables are principal source of β-carotene and are predecessors of vitamin-A
(Fig. 1).
• In carotenoid pathway, the extent of β-carotene formed by plants can be enhanced by
increasing the flux by raising the availability of carotenoid precursors, by communicating
enzymes in the early part of the pathway between geranyl pyrophosphate and lycopene
(Fig. 2).
Fig. 1. Biosynthesis of Vitamin A
Fig. 2. Conversion of β-
Carotene From Geranyl
Geranyl Pyrophosphate
(GGPP).
Lcy, Lycopene cyclase.
• For example, transgenic rice was developed by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich,
Switzerland in collaboration with University of Freiburg.
• In this transgenic rice, expressing genes for β-carotene was incorporated.
• Four steps are involved in β-carotene biosynthesis of rice grain.
• This rice appeared yellow in color.
• β-Carotene (1.6 µg) is present in selected line per gram of rice endosperm and was
recognized as “golden rice.”
• The first strategy is production of carotenoid over expression in tomato by using DXP
synthase that enhances flux in the entire pathway and enhances the total carotenoid content .
Vitamin-C
• Ascorbic acid is an important antioxidant and cofactor for various enzymes.
• It improves immunity, boost cardiovascular functions, alleviate ailment relating to connective
tissue, and it is essential for iron metabolism.
• Humans cannot synthesize ascorbic acid due to absence of l-gulono-1,4-lactone oxidoreductase,
which is needed during biosynthesis of ascorbic acid.
• Vitamin-C-rich plants are the only dietary sources of vitamin-C for humans.
• In plants, biosynthesis of vitamin-C takes place in two ways.
• First, with the conversion of d-galactouronic acid to l-galactouronic acid by d galactouronic acid
reductase enzyme followed by conversion of l-galactouronic acid to l-galactano-1,4-lactone,
immediate predecessor of ascorbic acid.
• d-galacturonic acid reductase enzyme encoding gene was isolated from strawberry and
characterized as galUR (Fig. 3) .
Fig. 3. Biosynthesis of Vitamin C.
• In alternative method vitamin-C is synthesized by recycling.
• It was hypothesized that by enhancing the expression of dehydroascorbate reductase
(DHAR) in plants, ascorbic acid synthesis also increases, and a proficient ascorbate
recovery would be accomplished.
• Following the ascorbate recycling pathway, expressing the rice dhar gene in multivitamin
maize, 6 times enhanced level of ascorbate compared to normal level had been observed
(Fig. 4).
(glutathione)
(monodehydroascorbate
reductase)
• Recombinant DNA technologies have also enhanced efficiency in the production of nonnutritive
sweeteners, such as aspartame and thaumatin.
• Market development has been particularly dynamic for the flavor enhancer glutamate, which
is produced by the fermentation of sugar sources, such as molasses, sucrose, or glucose using
high-performance strains of Corynebacterium glutamicum and Escherichia coli (see next Tables)
• Enzyme plays a vital role in oil extraction, purification, and modification.
• Microbial lipase is extensively used in oil extraction, purification, and oil modification.
• Commercial Cocoa Butter Equivalent may be produced by combination of different
processing steps, including blending, interesterification, fractionation, and refining using
lipase.