Food science
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</div>Food science is a discipline concerned with all technical aspects of food, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption. It is considered one of the agricultural sciences, and is usually considered distinct from the field of nutrition.
Examples of the activities of food scientists include the development of new food products, design of processes to produce these foods, choice of packaging materials, shelf-life studies, sensory evaluation of the product with trained expert panels or potential consumers, as well as microbiological and chemical testing. Food scientists at universities may study more fundamental phenomena that are directly linked to the production of particular food product and its properties. In the U.S., food science is typically studied at land-grant universities.
Food science is a highly interdisciplinary applied science. It incorporates concepts from many different fields including microbiology, chemical engineering, biochemistry, and many others.
Some of the subdisciplines of food science include:
- Food safety or Food microbiology - the causes and prevention of foodborne illness
- Food preservation - the causes and prevention of quality degradation
- Food engineering - the industrial processes used to manufacture food
- Product development - the invention of new food products
- Sensory analysis - the study of how food is perceived by the consumer's senses
- Food chemistry - the molecular composition of food and the involvement of these molecules in chemical reactions
- Food packaging - the study of how food is packaged to preserve the food after it has been processed.
- molecular gastronomy — the application of science to culinary practice and more generally gastronomical phenomena
The main organization in the United States regarding food science and food technology is the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), headquarted in Chicago, Illinois.
In the October 2006 issue of Food Technology, IFT President Dennis R. Heldman noted that the IFT Committee on Higher Education stated that the current definition the "Food Science is the discipline in which the engineering, biological, and physical sciences are used to study the nature of foods, the causes of deterioration, the principles underlying food processing, and the improvement of foods for the consuming public."<ref>Heldman, Dennis R. "IFT and the Food Science Profession." Food Technology. October 2006. p. 11.</ref>
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- Institute of Food Technologists - United States
- Institute of Food Science and Technology - United Kingdom
- South African Association of Food Scientists and Technologists South Africa
- International Union of Food Science and Technology - headquartered in Canada
es:Ciencia de los alimentos ta:உணவு அறிவியல் ht:Syans manje th:วิทยาศาสตร์การอาหาร

