Contributions of processing preservation towards the food technologies of the 1980s.

Abstract

Food technology of the 1980s will encompass two distinct approaches, the evolutionary and the revolutionary path. Every existing technology needs constant updating to improve the economy of the process, incorporate further nutritional safeguards and pay respect to changes in flavour and texture dictated by customers’ demand. Fundamentally, food technology serves to bridge the gap between harvesting and consumption of foods, but it has progressed over centuries from improving palatability and enhancing nutritive values of foods to the creation of entirely new food items. Novel marketing methods have, particularly in the last 2-3 decades, highlighted the need for prolonged yet safe shelf life of fresh foods, bringing into the forefront the study of chemical and biochemical changes in foods and the study of means to arrest or reduce them. Sun-drying foods to minimize biological activity - an ancient art - has branched into a considerable variety of processes, still open to further sophistication. Freezing and heat - pasteurization and sterilization - will not only embrace new instrumentation but new forms of packaging. We shall see the surface coating of foods, and the displacement of air by inert gas, in wrapped foods playing an ever increasing part in the prevention of spoilage and deterioration.