Foods quality factor

King C.J., Kieckbusch T.G., and Greenwald C.G., 1984. Food-quality factors in spray drying. In Advances in Drying, Ed. A.S Mujumdar, Hemisphere Publisher Corporation, New York, Vol. 3, pp. 70-120. 

King, C.J., Control of food-quality factors in spray drying, Drying 85, R. Toei and A.S. Mujumdar, eds., Hemisphere, New York, 1985, pp. 59-66. 

In this chapter we have explained several system-inherent factors of organic fruit growing that can improve fruit quality. However, with the intensification of organic fruit production currently under way worldwide (e.g. more intensive nitrogen application on horticultural crops), there is a risk of quality decrease. Therefore, technical progress in organic farming should be closely and scientifically monitored for (side) effects on food quality, possibly in a holistic view that also includes environmental, social and human health criteria. 

Maestrelli, A., Lo Scalzo, R., Lupi, D., Bertolo, G., and Torreggiani, D. 2001. Partial removal of water before freezing Cultivar and pre-treatments as quality factors of frozen muskmelon cucumis melo, cv reticulatus naud). J. Food Engineer. 49, 255-260. 

The question of an extra assessment factor in the hazard and risk assessment for chemicals of concern for children is specifically addressed in Section 5.2.1.13. The U.S. Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) (US-EPA 1996) directed the US-EPA to apply an extra safety factor of 10 in assessing the risks of pesticides to infants and children. The US-EPA (2002) noted the overlap of areas covered by the FQPA factor and those addressed by the traditional UFs, and it was concluded that an additional UF (children-specific) is not needed in the setting of reference values because the currently available UFs (interspecies, intraspecies, LQAEL-to-NOAEL, subchronic-to-chronic, and database-deficiency) were considered sufficient to account for uncertainties in the database from which the reference values are derived. Renwick et al. (2000) concluded that the available data did not provide a scientific rationale for an additional 10-fold UF for infants and children and pointed out that when adequate reproduction, multigeneration, or developmental studies are conducted, there will be no need for an additional 10-fold factor. 

After aflatoxin contamination, perhaps the next most important factor that has a negative effect on human health and food quality is the presence of food borne bacteria. Several routes for reduction of the risk are currently under extensive investigation. One such means of risk reduction is the utilization of ionizing radiation treatments on meat food products. Ionizing radiation has been demonstrated to be an effective method to reduce or eliminate several species of food borne human pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Trichinella, and Yersinia Chapter 23). If proper processing conditions are used, it is possible to produce high quality, shelf-stable, commercially sterile muscle foods. 

As mentioned before, the sensory properties of the various heterocyclic compounds discussed in this contribution are one of the important factors determining food quality. The data on sensory characteristics of the various numerous compounds formed through the reaction of aldehydes with ammonia or ammonium sulfide, in the presence or in the absence of acetoin, are scattered in the literature (57) and thus are not easy to find. At the same time, information on sensory characteristics of compounds of this type is of primary importance to food chemists. Sultan (29) has compiled much of this information which is presented here in Table IV where also the appropriate references to the original literature are given. 

What are the mechanisms and factors contributing to the generation and loss of food quality ... 

Surveys can still be useful since they integrate the outcome of all the factors along the entire supply chain to test predictions and assess whether models are taking the relevant factors into account, as well as generating new hypotheses when this is not the case. However, if done as isolated studies, the results of food quality surveys obtained at the point of sale have very little predictive power, unless extensive additional data are collected (e.g. origin, variety/breed, storage extent, conditions). Often this is not possible. 

In terms of organic food quality, the question is then whether high, acutely toxic concentrations occur in the relevant plant foods and if so, what production factors are important to predict and preferably prevent this from happening, or if other measures can be used to alleviate the harmful effects. 

Overall, these studies show that despite the failure of most studies to show definitive direct effects on health, production methods probably affect food quality to the extent that they have a significant impact on health. These studies show that there is now a good basis for designing studies that can elucidate which production factors are important in this regard, and that the next step is to define and test these factors. 

An important aspect of food processing, common with other processing industries, is yield of finished product from starting raw materials for any shift and for specific unit operations. Computer-integrated manufacturing can start with the measurement of material flows and build upon this information. Instrumentation for the on-line measurement of specific food qualities of importance lo the consumer such as Food flavor, aroma, texture, and microbial content arc under development. These quality factors... 

Rheology is the science of deformation and flow of matter. In food rheology, the matter of interest is food, and the importance of its deformation and flow relate to several important properties. Of these, texture is the most important. Texture is one of four quality factors of foods the others are flavor, appearance, and nutrition. In the food industry, there are other properties and processes in which rheology has an important role. They include formulation, manufacturing, transportation, and shelf stability. The measurement of the rheological properties of foods provides the food scientist and engineer with critical information necessary for the successful development and delivery of formulated foods to the consumer. 

In the food industry it has often been difficult to obtain true viscosity measurements (unithj.j) of complex fluid foods such as coarse fruit suspensions. These are usually non-Newtonian suspensions. Fruit concentrates are dispersions of solid particles (pulp) in aqueous media (serum). Their rheological properties are of interest in practical applications related to processing, storage stability, and sensory properties. Expensive rheometers are often not available in quality control and product development laboratories. However, viscosity is nonetheless an important quality factor of these products. 

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