Natural food industry

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A CAREER IN THE NATURAL FOODS INDUSTRY, YOU should first check out what natural and organic foods actually are. 

Visit a local grocery store and check to see if there is a natural foods department. Carefully examine the products, their labels, the wide variety of available items. Then proceed through the rest of the store and notice that the organic and natural foods industry is following the lead of conventional grocery stores large product mix and many suppliers. 

HEALTH FOODS" HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE SINCE THE 1920S, BUT THE NATURAL foods industry as we know it today did not come into its own until the 1970s, when the demand for natural foods skyrocketed. In these early days, farmers markets and coops dominated, and experts feel the industry is just now beginning to come into its own. The Green Movement is just another expression of efforts to preserve the earth and take better care of our health and fitness. 

You can work in a conventional grocery store and still aspire to work in the natural foods industry. You might work as a stock clerk at first and perhaps advance to become the head of the natural foods department. 

Even if you reach a point in life when you are ready to retire from full-time employment or store ownership in the natural foods industry, you do not have to give up your involvement in the field. An... 

WORKING IN THE NATURAL FOODS INDUSTRY IS A VERY PERSONAL AND DELIBERATE choice. Anyone can work in a grocery store, but those who work with natural and organic foods have a very specific commitment to their customers, their own health and to the earth. 

Flavors. Flavorings are used in the food industry to replace or enhance flavors that are lost during processing, to create flavor combinations that do not exist in nature, and to mask objectionable flavors (see Flavors and spices). Over 6000 flavor ingredients exist. 

Compounded Flavors. Liquid or dry blends of natural or synthetic flavor compounds are called compounded flavors. Most commercial preparations are available as water- and oil-soluble Hquids, spray-dried and plated powders, emulsions, and carbohydrate-, protein-, and fat-based pastes. Compounded flavors are used throughout the food industry in confections, baked goods, snack foods, carbonated beverages, and processed foods (53). 

Lactic Acid B cteri. The lactic acid bacteria are ubiquitous in nature from plant surfaces to gastrointestinal tracts of many animals. These gram-positive facultative anaerobes convert carbohydrates (qv) to lactic acid and are used extensively in the food industry, for example, for the production of yogurt, cheese, sour dough bread, etc. The sour aromatic flavor imparted upon fermentation appears to be a desirable food trait. In addition, certain species produce a variety of antibiotics. 

Electro dialysis is used widely to desalinate brackish water, but this is by no means its only significant appHcation. In Japan, which has no readily available natural salt brines, electro dialysis is used to concentrate salt from seawater. The process is also used in the food industry to deionize cheese whey, and in a number of poUution-control appHcations. 

Other Uses. The quantity of coal used for purposes other than combustion or processing is quite small (2,6). Coal, especially anthracite, has estabHshed markets for use as purifying and filtering agents in either the natural form or converted to activated carbon (see Carbon). The latter can be prepared from bituminous coal or coke, and is used in sewage treatment, water purification, respirator absorbers, solvent recovery, and in the food industry. Some of these markets are quite profitable and new uses are continually being sought for this material. 

Food Applications. A number of features make en2ymes ideal catalysts for the food industry. They are all natural, efficient, and specific work under mild conditions have a high degree of purity and are available as standardi2ed preparations. Because en2ymatic reactions can be conducted at moderate temperatures and pH values, simple equipment can be used, and only few by-products are formed. Furthermore, en2ymatic reactions are easily controUed and can be stopped when the desired degree of conversion is reached. 

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) has been widely used to the extraction processes in pharmaceutical industries. Besides application of SFE in phannaceuticals, it has been applied on a wide spectmm of natural products and food industries such as natural pesticides, antioxidants, vegetable oil, flavors, perfumes and etc [1-2]. 

Quality control is usually thought of in terms of control during production, and in some industries this may be all that is required. In the food industry such control must extend into the channels of distribution. The highly perishable nature of frozen foods makes this phase extremely important. It deserves a great deal more emphasis than it has received in the past. 

Malic add has a limited use in the food industry as an addifying agent where it is an alternative to dtric add. In nature, only L(-) malic add is found whereas the relatively cheap, chemical synthetic methods yield D/L mixtures. The favoured industrial way to produce the L(-) add is by enzymic transformation from fumaric add. Either whole cells or isolated and immobilised enzymes can be used, with high conversion effidendes. 

The ten leading energy consumers in the food industry use about one-half of the energy of the total food processing industry. About 50% of the end use energy is from natural gas, 15% is from petroleum, and 15% is from from purchased electricity. Some of the electricity is produced from natural gas and petroleum so the source use would be higher for gas and petroleum. There have been improvements in efficiencies in most of these industries but the relationships of industries still hold. 

Food Industry BTU, trillion Natural Gas Electricity oa Coal... 

GA is a natural biopolymer with wide industrial use as a stabilizer, a thickener, an emulsifier and in additive encapsulation not only in food industry but also in textiles, ceramics, lithography, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry (Verbeken et al., 2003). 

Antioxidants are not important only to the health conscious food manufacturers also rely on these chemicals to maintain the shelf life of their products. Synthetic antioxidants such as butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene, propyl gallate and tert-butyl hydroquinone were widely used in food processing to control oxidation and maintain food quality. However, as these synthetic antioxidants are suspected to be carcinogenic they now have restricted use in food (Madahavi and Salunkhe, 1995). Therefore, natural antioxidant sources, especially of plant origin, are of great interest to the food industry. 

Titanium dioxide (E171, Cl white 6) is a white, opaque mineral occurring naturally in three main forms rutile, anatase, and brookite. More than 4 million tons of titanium dioxide are produced per year and it is widely used for industrial applications (paints, inks, plastics, textiles) and in small amounts as a food colorant. ° "° Production and properties — Titanium oxide is mainly produced from ilmenite, a titaniferous ore (FeTiOj). Rutile and anatase are relatively pure titanium dioxide (Ti02) forms. Titanium oxide pigment is produced via chloride or sulfate processes via the treatment of the titanium oxide ore with chlorine gas or sulfuric acid, followed by a series of purification steps. High-purity anatase is preferred for utilization in the food industry. It may be coated with small amounts of alumina or silica to improve technological properties. 

As for anthocyanins, betalains are found in vacuoles and cytosols of plant cells. From the various natural sources of betalains, beetroot (Beta vulgaris) and prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus indica) are the only edible sources of these compounds. In the food industry, betalains are less commonly used as natural colorants from plant sources than anthocyanins and carotenoids, probably related to their more restricted distribution in nature. To date, red beetroot is the only betalain source exploited for use as a natural food coloring agent. The major betalain in red beetroot is betanin (or betanidin 5-0-P-glucoside). Prickly pear fruits contain mainly (purple-red) betanin and (yellow-orange) indicaxanthin and the color of these fruits is directly related to the betanin-to-indicaxanthin ratio (99 to 1, 1 to 8, and 2 to 1, respectively in white, yellow, and red fruits)." ... 

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