|  | Public Health Safety | Food Safety

Problems in Food Processing

Food processing is a branch of food science that transforms raw materials into consumer goods or enhances existing food products for aesthetics and preservation. The many benefits of food processing include toxin removal, ease of consumer marketing, greater product consistency, and improved food taste. However, there are a number of problems with food processing, particularly with regard to consumer health and food safety.

  1. Contamination

    • Processing can introduce pathogens into the food product, as well as cause adverse chemical reactions. The Food Integrity Campaign warns that improper handling during food processing can result in toxic contamination by pathogens, such as E. coli and salmonella. Richard L. Earle and Mary D. Earle, authors of a 2003 food-technology textbook, caution that it is difficult to control the levels of bacteria created by food-processing techniques. Especially for mass-produced food products, this variability can have grave implications for the consumer public, such as the E. coli outbreak in 2010, which was linked to poor sanitation conditions at a processing plant.

    Nutritional Depletion

    • Food-processing techniques can deplete the nutritional value of the raw food product. Pasteurization, for example, is a method of heating a food, generally a liquid, to prevent microbial growth. Used commonly for commercial milk and orange juice, pasteurization enhances the consumer health safety of the product but in so doing destroys vitamins and enzymes. Food preservatives lengthen the shelf life of a food product, making it safe for consumers to eat over a long period of time, but they also decrease nutritional value.

    Additives

    • Additives are substances added to foods to enhance their flavor or appearance. Environmental journalist Michael Pollan reports in his 2006 book The Omnivore's Dilemma that in the United States numerous food products contain corn and corn-syrup additives to create sweeter flavors. That trend in food processing is associated with the nation's rising rates of obesity and diabetes. Additionally, several common food additives have been linked to cancer, digestive problems, attention deficit disorder and a number of food allergies. These common additives include artificial coloring, the chemical sweetener aspartame, and the flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate.

    Producer Burdens

    • The techniques of food processing do not only involve making foods taste better or last longer on the shelves. They also alter the aesthetic appearance of a food product. While large-scale food and agricultural producers can afford to process their commodities to suit consumers' aesthetic expectations, the costs of processing can be too high for smaller farmers to bear. As a result, the foodstuffs produced by small farmers is often less competitive in the consumer market, which affects their economic viability.

Food Safety - Related Articles