Food science

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(part of) The food science and technology building of Wageningen University.

Food science is a discipline concerned with all technical aspects of food, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption. It is considered one of the agricultural sciences, and is usually considered distinct from the field of nutrition.

Examples of the activities of food scientists include the development of new food products, design of processes to produce these foods, choice of packaging materials, shelf-life studies, sensory evaluation of the product with trained expert panels or potential consumers, as well as microbiological and chemical testing. Food scientists at universities may study more fundamental phenomena that are directly linked to the production of particular food product and its properties. In the U.S., food science is typically studied at land-grant universities.

Food science is a highly interdisciplinary applied science. It incorporates concepts from many different fields including microbiology, chemical engineering, biochemistry, and many others.

Some of the subdisciplines of food science include:

Food safety - the causes, prevention and communication dealing with foodborne illness
Food microbiology - the positive and negative interactions between micro-organisms and foods
Food preservation - the causes and prevention of quality degradation
Food engineering - the industrial processes used to manufacture food
Product development - the invention of new food products
Sensory analysis - the study of how food is perceived by the consumer's senses
Food chemistry - the molecular composition of food and the involvement of these molecules in chemical reactions
Food packaging - the study of how packaging is used to preserve food after it has been processed and contain it through distribution.
Molecular gastronomy - the scientific investigation of processes in cooking, social & artistic gastronomical phenomena
Food technology - the technological aspects
Food physics - the physical aspects of foods (such as viscosity, creaminess, and texture)

The main organization in the United States regarding food science and food technology is the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, which is the US member organisation of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST). The European national organisations are organised into the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST), based at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

Some popular books on some aspects of food science or kitchen science have been written by Harold McGee and Howard Hillman.

In the October 2006 issue of Food Technology, 2006-07 IFT President Dennis R. Heldman noted that the IFT Committee on Higher Education gave the current definition of food science as follows: "Food Science is the discipline in which the engineering, biological, and physical sciences are used to study the nature of foods, the causes of deterioration, the principles underlying food processing, and the improvement of foods for the consuming public."^[1]