Food processing in the context of Pasteurized

Agricultural policy describes a set of laws relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Well designed agricultural policies use predetermined goals, objectives and pathways set by an individual or government for the purpose of achieving a specified outcome, for the benefit of the individual(s), society and the nations' economy at large. The goals could include issues such as biosecurity, food security, rural poverty reduction or increasing economic value through cash crop or improved food distribution or food processing.

Agricultural policies take into consideration the primary (production), secondary (such as food processing, and distribution) and tertiary processes (such as consumption and supply in agricultural products and supplies). Outcomes can involve, for example, a guaranteed supply level, price stability, product quality, product selection, land use or employment. Governments can use tools like rural development practices, agricultural extension, economic protections, agricultural subsidies or price controls to change the dynamics of agricultural production, or improve the consumer impacts of the production.

Sustainable living describes a lifestyle that attempts to reduce the use of Earth's natural resources by an individual or society. Its practitioners often attempt to reduce their ecological footprint (including their carbon footprint) by altering their home designs and methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet. Its proponents aim to conduct their lives in ways that are consistent with sustainability, naturally balanced, and respectful of humanity's symbiotic relationship with the Earth's natural ecology. The practice and general philosophy of ecological living closely follows the overall principles of sustainable development.

One approach to sustainable living, exemplified by small-scale urban transition towns and rural ecovillages, seeks to create self-reliant communities based on principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency, particularly in food production. These principles, on a broader scale, underpin the concept of a bioregional economy.

Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or support growth. Different species of animals have different feeding behaviours that satisfy the needs of their metabolisms and have evolved to fill specific ecological niches within specific geographical contexts.

Omnivorous humans are highly adaptable and have adapted to obtaining food in many different ecosystems. Humans generally use cooking to prepare food for consumption. The majority of the food energy required is supplied by the industrial food industry, which produces food through intensive agriculture and distributes it through complex food processing and food distribution systems. This system of conventional agriculture relies heavily on fossil fuels, which means that the food and agricultural systems are one of the major contributors to climate change, accounting for as much as 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

A blue-collar worker is a person who performs manual labor or skilled trades. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involve manufacturing, warehousing, mining, carpentry, electrical work, custodial work, agriculture, logging, landscaping, food processing, waste collection and disposal, construction, shipping, and many other types of physical work. Blue-collar work often involves something being physically built or maintained. In social status, blue-collar workers generally belong to the working class.

In contrast, the white-collar worker typically performs work in an office environment and may involve sitting at a computer or desk. A third type of work is a service worker (pink collar) whose labor is related to customer interaction, entertainment, sales or other service-oriented work — particularly those service jobs that have been traditionally considered to be women's work, such as secretaries, nurses, teachers, early childhood educators, florists, etc. Many occupations blend blue, white, or pink-collar work and are often paid hourly wage-labor, although some professionals may be paid by the project or salaried. There are a wide range of payscales for such work depending upon field of specialty and experience.

Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for the long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for the eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a history that goes back to the early Neolithic era, around the seventh millennium BC, in many regions of Europe and Africa. Before the 20th century, milking was done by hand on small farms. Beginning in the early 20th century, milking was done in large scale dairy farms with innovations including rotary parlors, the milking pipeline, and automatic milking systems that were commercially developed in the early 1990s.

Milk preservation methods have improved starting with the arrival of refrigeration technology in the late 19th century, which included direct expansion refrigeration and the plate heat exchanger. These cooling methods allowed dairy farms to preserve milk by reducing spoiling due to bacterial growth and humidity.

Vacuum drying is the mass transfer operation in which the moisture present in a substance, usually a wet solid, is removed by means of creating a vacuum.

In chemical processing industries like food processing, pharmacology, agriculture, and textiles, drying is an essential unit operation to remove moisture. Vacuum drying is generally used for the drying of substances that are hygroscopic and heat-sensitive, and is based on the principle of creating a vacuum to decrease the chamber pressure below the vapor pressure of the water, causing it to boil. With the help of vacuum pumps, the pressure is reduced around the substance to be dried. This decreases the boiling point of water inside that product and thereby increases the rate of evaporation significantly. The result is a significantly increased drying rate of the product. The vacuum drying process is a batch operation performed at reduced pressures and lower relative humidity compared to ambient pressure, enabling faster drying.

Convenience food (also called tertiary processed food) is food that is commercially prepared (often through processing) for ease of consumption, and is usually ready to eat without further preparation. It may also be easily portable, have a long shelf life, or offer a combination of such convenient traits. Convenience foods include ready-to-eat dry products, frozen food such as TV dinners, shelf-stable food, prepared mixes such as cake mix, and snack food. Food scientists now consider most of these products to be ultra-processed foods and link them to poor health outcomes.

Bread, cheese, salted food and other prepared foods have been sold for thousands of years, but these typically require a much lower level of industrial processing, as reflected in systems such as the Nova classification. Other types of food were developed with improvements in food technology. Types of convenience foods can vary by country and geographic region. Some convenience foods have received criticism due to concerns about nutritional content and how their packaging may increase solid waste in landfills. Various methods are used to reduce the unhealthy aspects of commercially produced food and fight childhood obesity.

The causes of food going uneaten are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about one-third of the world's food is thrown away. A similar amount is lost on top of that by feeding human-edible food to farm animals (the net effect wastes an estimated 1144 kcal/person/day). A 2021 meta-analysis, that did not include food lost during production, by the United Nations Environment Programme found that food waste was a challenge in all countries at all levels of economic development. The analysis estimated that global food waste was 931 million tonnes of food waste (about 121 kg per capita) across three sectors: 61 percent from households, 26 percent from food service and 13 percent from retail.

Wasted food is a major part of the impact of agriculture on climate change (it amounts to 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually) and other environmental issues, such as land use, water use and loss of biodiversity. Prevention of food waste is the highest priority, and when prevention is not possible, the food waste hierarchy ranks the food waste treatment options from preferred to least preferred based on their negative environmental impacts. Reuse pathways of surplus food intended for human consumption, such as food donation, is the next best strategy after prevention, followed by animal feed, recycling of nutrients and energy followed by the least preferred option, landfill, which is a major source of the greenhouse gas methane. Other considerations include unreclaimed phosphorus in food waste leading to further phosphate mining. Moreover, reducing food waste in all parts of the food system is an important part of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture, by reducing the total amount of water, land, and other resources used.

The Nova classification (Portuguese: nova classificação, 'new classification') is a framework for grouping edible substances based on the extent and purpose of food processing applied to them. Researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, proposed the system in 2009.

Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. These services involve the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy farmers, intermediaries and consumers. Numerous interconnected activities are involved in doing this, such as planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing and packaging, transport, storage, agro- and food processing, provision of market information, distribution, advertising and sale. Effectively, the term encompasses the entire range of supply chain operations for agricultural products, whether conducted through ad hoc sales or through a more integrated chain, such as one involving contract farming.

Food science (or bromatology) is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development of food technology.

Food science brings together multiple scientific disciplines. It incorporates concepts from fields such as chemistry, physics, physiology, microbiology, and biochemistry. Food technology incorporates concepts from chemical engineering, for example.

Culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific trait. This is done to exaggerate desirable characteristics, or to remove undesirable characteristics by altering the genetic makeup of the population. For livestock and wildlife, culling often refers to killing removed animals based on their characteristics, such as their sex or species membership, or as a means of preventing infectious disease transmission.

In fruits and vegetables, culling is the sorting or segregation of fresh harvested produce into marketable lots, with the non-marketable lots being discarded or diverted into food processing or non-food processing activities. This usually happens at collection centres located at, or close to farms.

Processed meat is considered to be any meat that has been modified in order to either improve its taste or to extend its shelf life. Methods of meat processing include salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, and the addition of chemical preservatives. Processed meat is frequently made from pork or beef, but also poultry and others. It can contain meat by-products such as blood. Processed meat products include bacon, ham, sausages, salami, corned beef, jerky, hot dogs, lunch meat, canned meat, chicken nuggets, and meat-based sauces. Meat processing includes all the processes that change fresh meat, with the exception of simple mechanical processes such as cutting, grinding or mixing.

Meat processing began as soon as people realized that cooking and salting helps to preserve fresh meat. It is not known when this took place; however, the process of salting and sun-drying was recorded in Ancient Egypt, while using ice and snow is credited to early Romans, and canning was developed by Nicolas Appert who in 1810 received a prize for his invention from the French government. Medical health organizations advise people to limit processed meat consumption as it increases risk of some forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

The carob (/ˈkærəb/ KARR-əb; Ceratonia siliqua) is a flowering evergreen tree or shrub in the Caesalpinioideae subfamily of the legume family, Fabaceae. The carob tree is native to the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. It is widely cultivated for its edible fruit, which takes the form of seed pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens and landscapes. Spain is its largest producer, followed by Italy and Morocco.

Carob pods have a number of culinary applications, including a powder or chips that can be used as a chocolate alternative. The seeds are used to produce locust bean gum or carob gum, a common thickening agent used in food processing.

Breakfast cereal is a category of food, including food products, made from processed cereal grains, that are eaten as part of breakfast or as a snack food, primarily in Western societies.

Although warm, cooked cereals like oat meal, maize grits, and wheat farina have the longest history as traditional breakfast foods, branded and ready-to-eat cold cereals (many produced via the process of extrusion) appeared around the late 19th century. These processed, precooked, packaged cereals are most often served in a quick and simple preparation with dairy products, traditionally cow's milk. These modern cereals can also be paired with yoghurt or plant-based milks, or eaten plain. Fruit or nuts are sometimes added, and may enhance the nutritional benefits.

Empresas Polar is a Venezuelan corporation that started as a brewery, founded in 1941 by Lorenzo Alejandro Mendoza Fleury, Juan Simon Mendoza, Rafael Lujan and Karl Eggers in Antímano "La Planta de Antimano", Caracas. It is the largest and best known brewery in Venezuela, but has since long diversified to an array of industries, mostly related to food processing and packaging, also covering markets abroad.

In food processing, pasteurization (also pasteurisation) is a process of food preservation in which packaged foods (e.g., milk and fruit juices) are treated with mild heat, usually to less than 100 °C (212 °F), to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life. Pasteurization either destroys or deactivates microorganisms and enzymes that contribute to food spoilage or the risk of disease, including vegetative bacteria, but most bacterial spores survive the process.

Pasteurization is named after the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur, whose research in the 1860s demonstrated that thermal processing would deactivate unwanted microorganisms in wine. Spoilage enzymes are also inactivated during pasteurization. Today, pasteurization is used widely in the dairy industry and other food processing industries for food preservation and food safety.

Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illness resulting from the ingestion of a common food is known as a food-borne disease outbreak. Food safety includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potential health hazards. In this way, food safety often overlaps with food defense to prevent harm to consumers. The tracks within this line of thought are safety between industry and the market and then between the market and the consumer. In considering industry-to-market practices, food safety considerations include the origins of food including the practices relating to food labeling, food hygiene, food additives and pesticide residues, as well as policies on biotechnology and food and guidelines for the management of governmental import and export inspection and certification systems for foods. In considering market-to-consumer practices, the usual thought is that food ought to be safe in the market and the concern is safe delivery and preparation of the food for the consumer. Food safety, nutrition and food security are closely related. Unhealthy food creates a cycle of disease and malnutrition that affects infants and adults as well.

Food can transmit pathogens, which can result in the illness or death of the person or other animals. The main types of pathogens are bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungus. The WHO Foodborne Disease Epidemiology Reference Group conducted the only study that solely and comprehensively focused on the global health burden of foodborne diseases. This study, which involved the work of over 60 experts for a decade, is the most comprehensive guide to the health burden of foodborne diseases. The first part of the study revealed that 31 foodborne hazards considered priority accounted for roughly 420,000 deaths in LMIC and posed a burden of about 33 million disability adjusted life years in 2010. Food can also serve as a growth and reproductive medium for pathogens. In developed countries there are intricate standards for food preparation, whereas in lesser developed countries there are fewer standards and less enforcement of those standards. In the US, 5,000 deaths per year were related to foodborne pathogens in 1999. Another main issue is simply the availability of adequate safe water, which is usually a critical item in the spreading of diseases. Food poisoning cannot be completely avoided due to the number of persons involved in the supply chain, as well as the fact that pathogens can be introduced into foods no matter how many precautions are taken.