Food Processing: Strategies for Quality Assessment, A Broad Perspective

Abstract

Food processing is very important in many economies around the world. Food processing may be carried out in the home or by community groups or as cottage industries or more formal commercial formulations with respective sites having increasing levels of sophistication and capital requirements. The aim of the food processing is to ensure microbiological and chemical safety of foods, adequate nutrient content and bioavailability, and acceptability to the consumer and caregiver with regard to sensory properties and ease of preparation. Processing may have either beneficial or harmful effects on these different properties of food, so each of these factors must be taken into account in the design and preparation of complementary foods.

Food quality is the quality characteristic of food that is acceptable to consumers. This includes external features such as appearance, (size, shape, color, flavor, and consistency) texture, and flavor factors such as federal grade standards which describe the internal characteristics such as chemical, physical, and microbiological. The food quality is an important food manufacturing requirement, because food consumers are susceptible to any form of food-borne disease that may occur during manufacturing processes. The food analysis is another aspect of food quality which helps to standardize the parameter related to nutritional sensory and compositional requirement. The most important of food quality is the safety and hygiene aspect. There is a lot of hue and cry over outbreak caused by food-borne disease. WHO/FAO, a joint venture has been established to protect the health of consumer, fraudulent practices, adulteration, etc. HACCP is a certification which is implemented to prevent the risk caused by physical, chemical, and microbiological factors. These three principles of the HACCP are concentrated to prevent the food from hazard and risk and regarded as guarantee for safety to the consumer. Quality analysis is of equal importance for consumer. It covers both nutritional and sensory aspect of food quality.