Obsession with "freshness" in foods-Unjustified loss of foods is the result!

Is it not strange that a vast majority of consumers will go to any extent to access to the so called "fresh foods"? What do they get by relentlessly pursuing the "fresh" mantra, some times paying prices much higher than that for processed foods? Can it be an obsession that is passed on from generation to generation because of the low population in olden days, lack of processing technologies and plenty of foods available within easy reach ensuring easy availability of ever fresh foods? Or this is nothing but the eating disorder fancifully known as "Orthorexia nervosa" when people over obsessed with pure food lose interest in eating altogether? Other wise how can we explain the obsession of many people with freshly obtained milk from the cow or buffalo, to be milked right in front of them at the farm, ignoring ready availability of dairy milk nearby? This is all the more puzzling because this fresh milk is brought home to be boiled for a long time before use! Same is true with fruits, vegetables and lot of other foods. This syndrome is visible while buying packed foods also with consumers looking closely at the manufacturing date before buying, ignoring those with older manufacturing date! 

Most interesting is the case of vegetables and it is a usual sight to see house wives buying the same from road side vendors believing they are fresh and taking home to promptly over cook them destroying its texture and flavor. After all when these vegetables are used to make dishes the major taste and flavor come from the spices and other adjuncts used rather than that of the vegetables used! Probably people are not aware that to day's technological prowess enables food industry to deliver fruits and vegetables in prime conditions as they resort to cold storage, cold display, controlled atmosphere packs etc and super market can supply fresh produce which can be much superior to that offered by the road side vendor. Usually vegetable vendors get their supplies from the local Mandis where farmers bring them without any preharvest and post harvest precautions, leaving them wilted and "exhausted"! Why is that frozen food industry in India is not able to prosper during the last 2 decades? Frozen food industry is more or less confined to ice cream products with a few ready to "heat and eat" products and the frozen food space occupied in a typical market is practically insignificant compared to the space occupied by main stream products. This industry is paying the price for Indian consumers' obsession with fresh foods or despising of "old" foods!   

The density of refrigerators in the Indian households is fairly high and some of the brands of refrigerators available in the market can rival any foreign markets across the world. Still there are innumerable families not using them for keeping the foods overnight for consumption next day if they can afford. With microwave ovens also gaining foothold in India, habits are changing and many nuclear families do store foods for use later in conjunction with microwave heating. Some of the Indian foods like cooked rice and preparations based on rice are not amenable to storage beyond a certain time and such stored products are difficult to be made tasty " again" in spite of microwave heating. Same is true with wheat based products like roti, bread, uppuma, semia etc. It is a question of compromising a little bit vis-a-vis the eating quality of recooked cold stored foods which the younger generation is learning to live with. Does it portend a change in perception over the next few years? If so the food industry can look forward to better days.

The preference for or obsession with fresh foods, whatever one may call it, is not unique to Indians. According to a recent report emanating from the Gulf countries, it seems tens of thousands of liters of milk, and huge volumes of bread and other perishable food products are being thrown away in countries like Abu Dhabi and Dubai every day because of consumers' attitude towards foods which are not fresh according to their perception. .A large number of people in the UAE are so obsessed about freshness of food that they refuse to buy products dated a day or two before the date of purchase, albeit the products being safe to consume and being well within the shelf life. Out of about 8 lakh liters of milk marketed in UAE every day about 16-32 thousand liters are reported to be wasted because of the tendency on the part of the buyers, probably most of them Indian immigrants, to reject the products processed earlier, with 2-3 days still remaining for expiration. These consumers, who hardly know the implication of their attitude, are paving the way for good food products going waste running to millions of dollars in value. It is least realized by the consumers that In the long run, this can also boomerang on them with hike in prices for the wasted categories of food products becoming a reality. Imagine thousands of liters of precious milk of good quality being dumped in the drains every day in these countries because of consumer weariness in accepting the reality that freshness need not always be associated with quality and good health!  

V..H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

ASSESSING"FRESHNESS" OF PACKED FOODS-A NEW TECHNIQUE

It is the consumer psychology that the foods consumed by them must be as fresh as possible though health aspect also comes into reckoning with some segment of the consumers. The front of the pack label indicates when the product is manufactured and for how long the contents are good for eating. However this information does not guarantee that the food inside the unopened pack is still good, the consumer depending entirely on the label declaration to take the buying decision. Foods are packed in rigid as well as flexible containers and the packaging materials used can be metal, plastics, paper, laminates etc depending on the functionality and shelf life desired. While transparent packaging may provide some clue regarding the appearance of the product based on which some consumers decide whether they are good or bad, there is not sure way of arriving at a decision about the quality without opening the sealed pack. Recent news that scientists have come out with a a gadget that can "tell" whether the packed food is good for eating, is indeed a welcome news and it is worth evaluating the efficacy and relevance of the new gadget for the industry, retailer and consumer.

When a food is packed in any container the industry has a few options to extend the life of the product to some extent through manipulation of the gas composition inside. Most products are packed in plastic pouches and sealed under atmospheric condition. The head space with in the pack is air containing mostly about 21% oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, 1% Argon and some trace gases like Carbon Dioxide and others. It is the presence of Oxygen in the air which causes quality deterioration in food through oxidative chemical reactions and support for growth of microorganisms if the water activity in the product is conducive for them. Oxidation becomes a critical issue in dry products, especially if the concentration of oil component in the product is significantly high. Oxidative rancidity is one of the major problems for the fried product industry and there are many antioxidants deployed for retarding rancidity in such products. Vacuum packing and Nitrogen flushed packing are also employed to protect food from rancidity and consequent flavor deterioration. Use of modified atmosphere packing technology is based on controlling the composition of the gas inside a pack with predominance of CO2 which prevents growth of microorganisms, especially in high moisture products like fresh fruits and vegetables besides slowing down biological reactions to extend their effective life.  

A new laser technology developed in Sweden is claimed to be capable of detecting the gas composition inside packaged foods and determine the relative freshness of the content. Since It is a non-destructive method to test "freshness" of packaged foods, the developers feel that its utility would be of great relevance to all those involved in quality assessment of foods. Through measurements of the gas composition the product quality within can be monitored at different times effortlessly, enabling to check a much higher number of products than at present by the retailers as well as the industry. Most packaging practices use simple flexible pouches made from plastic films with varying gas permeability and oxygen is bound to seep in through the film surface into the pouch leading to oxidation, the growth of bacteria, and spoilage. The hand held instrument developed by the scientists is able to determines gas composition within food packaging using a laser spectroscopic technique which measures the absorption of light when the laser passes through the package and based on the signal, a computer provides the gas composition within. 

The only prerequisite for the technology to be successful is that light must pass through the package for measurement of the transmitted light and correlating to the gas composition. It appears almost all packaging materials currently in vogue allow at least some light to pass through making the method universally applicable. With the advent of lamination technology there are many permutations and combinations of films with Aluminum foil to control the gas and vapor transmission properties and the fact that even these packaging systems containing Aluminum foil can transmit light to the extent of as low as 0.001%, can make the laser technology relevant to almost all segments of food industry. Though technical soundness of the concept is well established beyond doubt there can be some challenges when commercial application becomes a reality.

A most critical question is whether the optical properties of the content inside can vitiate the result and if so to what extent. Similarly will there be variation from product to product and whether individual standardization will be required for each and every product. Ultimately who are the target users of this beautiful technology, whether the consumer, industry, quality monitoring agency or the retailer? Will there be a day in future when retail stores keep this instrument at each bay so that the consumers can check the products they want to buy for their freshness and if so how can the retailers avoid massive return of products left behind by the consumers to the manufacturers? Does this technology has a potential to disrupt the current food supply chain dynamics seriously? These are challenges that need to be addressed before mass deployment of this "toy"!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FROZEN FOODS-ARE THEY GOOD TILL ETERNITY?

There is a general perception that foods frozen and stored at -18C can be preserved indefinitely and of course there is some truth in this belief. A product well prepared through sound processing techniques to attain commercial sterility can be "preserved" for long and can be considered safe for human consumption. At temperatures below -18C no microorganism can survive and therefore from that angle the food is safe from any hazards of microbial origin. If this is so why is that manufacturers put a "best before date" on the label which makes many consumers throw the food after that date? There is a logic in such an approach because for a common consumer a good food has to provide sensory satisfaction besides being safe.

It is an elementary knowledge that physical changes do take place in frozen foods that can affect the texture in a significant way and the pace of such changes can vary from food to food. There are well documented data regarding the shelf life of different foods and invariably most foods taste different after 6-9 months frozen storage. There are color changes that may occur in meat, poultry and some vegetables while freezer burns often appear as brown spots on the surface of the product. Inadequate packaging can dry out the product causing undesirable textural changes. Improper storage conditions with fluctuating temperatures cause changes in crystal structure of the ice particles which again adversely affect the texture of many frozen food articles.

Commercial freezing is based on well established modern technologies and there can be no comparison of freezing with any other technology in keeping the original quality of food in tact. If most of the foods available in the western markets belong to the frozen category, the reason is that consumers have come to recognize that these products meet with their expectations fully. Further fillip to the frozen food industry was received when microwave heating system became omnipotent in almost all kitchens making it easier to thaw and reheat for consumption. The extraordinary success of frozen food industry in many rich countries is also attributable to the high per capita income, excellent transportation facilities, efficient nation-wide infrastructure, adequate storage facilities at homes and above all the predominance of animal based diet that cannot be preserved by other processes as efficiently as the freezing process.

Why is that frozen foods have not got a footing in India? Seminar after seminar it has been proclaimed since last fifty years that food industry in the country could not develop because of woefully inadequate infrastructure for manufacture, distribution, storage and retailing. This applies to frozen food industry also as efficient processing machinery is not easily available, required cold chain does not exist, frozen display facilities at the retail level are inadequate and storage capacity for frozen foods in the house hold kitchen is very small. Even the consumers find it difficult to buy frozen foods regularly as ferrying them from the retail store to homes takes time causing some thawing before reaching their refrigerators. Yet very little is being done to address this problem either by the industry or the government. Added to this the frozen foods costs are very high in India due to limited production volumes and unfavorable scale of operation. Unless there is a close linkage between the farms and the processing centers the viability of the industry cannot be assured and such linkages are conspicuous by its absence in India.

It is an irony that thousands of ethnic foods for which India is famous cannot be preserved even for a few days using any technology other than freezing and unfortunately practically no R & D work takes place in any of the two dozen food research set ups in the country, boasting of reasonably good development facilities. While through common sense many traditional products are being marketed under frozen conditions in some of the urban regions in the UK and the US to cater to the immigrant populations there, the processes adopted by the entrepreneurs cannot be considered optimum, requiring further research inputs to make them technologically efficient. National food research organizations like CFTRI, DFRL and major Universities carrying out food research must focus on this area as frozen foods will eventually become a main stream food industry out pacing all others within a decade.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com