HOW TO PREPARE FOOD?
We get food
materials naturally to live healthily. We can get from agriculture and breeding
many living beings. We produce many food materials from that. But, we are not
eating those things as we got. Instead, we will change those food materials
into the human eating format. This is called food preparation.
Objectives:
There are some objectives while we convert food materials into
eatable food. For example, cook the materials and make it as food.
1. Cleaning:
We can’t use the food materials as we get. The raw food items
may contain soil and impurities. The food materials may contain dust and germs
in it. So we have to wash it with water and use it with clean. If you use clean
food materials, it prevents you from health issues.
Food borne illness can occur when produce is contaminated. Eating unwashed, raw fruits and
vegetables increases your risk of dangerous bacterial infections, including
E.Coli and Salmonella. Nausea, vomiting,
diarrhoea, stomach cramps, fever, and dehydration are all possible side
effects.
2. Add taste to food:
After preparing the
food materials into cooked food, we can increase the food’s taste for eating.
Eating tasty food is very important. Some people eat raw vegetables. They also
cut those vegetables into different shapes and add some more ingredients for
taste. So in cooking people add some ingredients for tasty food.
3. Suitable for digestion:
We cannot digest some food items in raw form. Some food items
cannot be bitten by our teeth. So we can process those food items by the method
of soaking in water, germinating, boiling, cutting into small pieces and
grating. The processed food is easy to digest.
4. Increase the vitamins of food:
Some food items can be processed to get the hidden vitamins
inside it. We process and add some more ingredients to those food items. So
that, we can get vitamins from that food. For example, we grind some food items
into flour and add palm sugar for taste. Next, germinate some millet and eat.
Remove the shell from groundnut, grind the nut into small pieces and add some
sweeteners like jaggery and palm sugar. This process is useful in eating food
materials easily. Next, prepare coconut milk and grate the coconut to eat. So
we can get more vitamins from food like this.
5. Change colour and smell of food:
The process of cooking food is to change the food item into a
good looking one and to get good smell from it. The process will help people to
eat food interestingly and with a smile on their faces. For example, turmeric
powder is used to change the colour of food while we are cooking. We can add
spices to change the flavour of food.
6. Preservation of food:
Some food items
will spoil if they are stored. Some food items may rot and lose all nutrients.
For food processing, we should preserve food items. The methods followed
traditionally are to put the food items under the sunlight and in a dry place.
The heat from the sunlight kills the germs and preserves the food items. For
example, pickle is the preserved food we use traditionally.
There are several methods followed for
food preservation process. They are
Drying -
Sun-drying or dehydration.
Food drying is
one of the most ancient methods of food preservation. Drying can readily be
employed in place of other food preservation procedures since it reduces the
moisture in foods, making them lighter and easier to store.
Pickling
Pickling is the preservation of food
through either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar. A
pickle is the outcome of this process. Pickling adds a unique flavour to food
when used alone or in combination with other ingredients.
Freezing
The simplest,
most convenient and least time-consuming technique of food preservation is
freezing. With the exception of produce with a high water content, cream-based
goods, and cooked starchy foods like cooked noodles and rice, most foods freeze
well.
All fresh food
contains enzymes, which aid in the ripening and maturation of the plant. Enzyme
activity is slowed but not stopped during freezing. These enzymes, if not
inactivated, can cause colour and flavour alterations as well as nutrient loss
during freezer storage. Freezing also inhibits, but not eliminates, the germs
that cause spoilage or sickness.
Oil packing
The oil’s sole purpose is to prevent
oxidation from the air in the container, which can cause food to discolour. By
removing air from the surface of the vegetable, anaerobic conditions are
created, which promote the growth of certain bacteria.
Salting
Salt works as a
preservative by changing the availability of water in foods, preventing
microorganisms from utilising it as a source of nutrition. When there are salt
present, infections and spoiling organisms cannot develop.
Fermenting
Fermentation is
the process of carbohydrates being broken down in the absence of oxygen by
microbial enzymes. Bacteria and fungi have separate sets of metabolic genes that
enable them to manufacture enzymes that break down different forms of sugar
compounds.
Addition of
sugar
Sugar as a
preservative — sugar helps to prevent or limit the growth of bacteria, moulds,
and yeast in foods like jam and preserves by acting as a humectants (keeping
and stabilising the water content in foods).
Addition of
mustard oil and vinegar
They are used
to preserve fruits and vegetables in the form of pickles as a preservative.
Because food-spoiling bacteria cannot survive in such an environment, the use
of mustard oil or vinegar prevents the deterioration of fruits and vegetables.
Use of chemical
preservatives
For millennia,
salt, sodium nitrite, spices, vinegar, and alcohol have been used to preserve
food. To reduce microbial development that leads to spoilage and to slow
changes in colour, texture, and flavour, sodium benzoate, calcium propionate,
and potassium sorbic acid are utilised.
7. Kill the
germs:
The process of
cooking involves cleaning the food materials with water and hot water too. This
process will kill the germs and turn into a healthy one. If we clean with hot
water, it kills the invisible germs from food items.
The heating
process is the vast majority of hazardous microorganisms are eliminated at
temperatures near to the boiling point of water; heating food is an excellent
technique of preserving it.
THE FOOD PROCESSING METHODS:
The food processing methods are classified
into two categories.
They are
1. Natural or
uncooked method.
2. Artificial
or cooked method.
The first one
is a natural method which involves eating raw vegetables, fruits and some food
items. We do not cook those foods.
The next is an
artificial or cooked method. In this we add some ingredients to add taste and
flavour to food while we are cooking. So these are the two methods involved in
food processing methods.
If we know these two methods then we can
choose which method is suitable for us.
The food
processing methods can illustrate here with a diagram.
FOOD PROCESSING METHODS
1. Natural or Uncooked food
1.1. Get from Nature
1.2. Dry the food items
1.3. Germinate the food items
1.4. Grind and paste the food items
2. Artificial or Cooked food
2.1. Positive methods
2.1.1. Boiling and baking
2.1.2. Heating and frying
2.2. Negative methods
2.2.1. Fried in oil
2.2.2. Add spices
2.2.3. Sweet items
Eat Healthy ...
Live Happily...
Keep Smiling !
To be continued..... Next post
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