Extrusion cooking is a relatively recent form of food processing. Forcing material through a hole is the process of extrusion. Sausage extruders were devel￾oped in the nineteenth century as simple forming machines. Eventually pasta was produced in extruders. Flour and water were added at one end of the machine

The domestication of different grasses, all members of the monocotyledonous family Gramineae, was a seminal event in the history of mankind. The cultiva￾tion of these plants led to the generation of agricultural surpluses. These in turn enabled societies in different parts of the world to make the transition from a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle to one based on communities living in per￾manent settlements

Frying, especially deep fat frying, has become the most popular food prepara￾tion technology during the last five decades. The reason is that the preparation is easy even for less experienced cooks, the procedure is rapid, and the finished product is highly palatable. In the frying procedure, fat is the medium of heat transfer. Two main frying methods exist, namely shallow frying and deep frying

The taming of fire, permitting the thermal processing of vegetable foodstuffs in particular, extended enormously the number of natural products that could be used as foods by humans and gave a tremendous impulse to the extraordinary dif￾fusion and development of the human population in almost every region of the world (De Bry, 1994). Foodstuffs can be roughly divided in two classes, those that are or are not edible in their raw form. The most important naturally edible foods are meat and milk, which are heated mainly for eliminating dangerous microorganisms, and some fruits, used by plants to attract animals for diffusing

Vitamins, by their definition, are essential to health and have to be obtained from the diet on a regular basis because, with the exception of vitamin D, they cannot be produced by the body. In terms of medicine and nutrition, our knowledge of vitamins is relatively recent. Although James Lind discovered an association

9.1 Introduction The most common dietary problems in developed countries are due mainly to over nutrition. The incidence of overweight, obesity and adult onset-diabetes is increasing steadily. Cancer is now the most common cause of death in many developed countries. The most common cancers are breast, lung, bowel and prostate, which are virtually absent in some developing countries. However, even

8.1 Introduction The question of why it is necessary to improve the nutritional value of plant foods is one that at first hand might seem difficult to justify. What evidence is there that this is a problem? In the developed world there are no overt signs of malnutri￾tion even amongst strict

7.1 Introduction Both food processors and consumers have a basic need for valid and relevant nutritional information; on the one hand to guide production and marketing of genuinely functional products, and on the other to allow selection of products according to efficacy

6.1 Introduction: the problem of providing nutrition information Developments in nutrition research and improved scientific understanding of the relationship between diet and health have led to increasing interest in the nutri￾tional aspects of the food supply. This interest is shared by academics, health professionals, government officials, consumers and the food and supplement industries alike, although not always for the same reasons and generally at dif￾ferent levels of knowledge and understanding. Interest in nutrition, in respect of both total diet and individual foods, is second only to concern about food safety

5.1 Introduction In this chapter, copper is considered as a case study for the measurement of the effect of nutrient intake. The importance of the role of copper in biological systems is first explored in a brief review of selected human cuproenzymes