Processing of Agriculture Produce : Spices, Fruits and Vegetables

The principle of food processing is to convert any given fresh food into a consumable food product. Nicolas Appert, a French chef in 1809, was the first to discover the technique of hermetic bottling by which he succeeded to supply food for the French troops. This contributed to the development of the food processing methods. In the modern age, where some fruits and vegetables could be consumed raw, the majority of foods on the other hand calls for food processing to ensure safe consumption and better health. Nowadays, we consume such processed food more often in our daily lives. Seldom one finds a man who does not eat pizza, burger or consume soft drinks, and a variety of spices on a daily basis. Majority of this processed food is converted out of fruits and vegetables. With all this information one may start wondering what is food processing in FPI?

What is food processing in FPI?

The term food processing means the adaptation of a variety of operations or processes by which raw agricultural food ingredients are made suitable for intake, storage, or cooking. It indulges the processes of basic preparation of foods, the transformation of a food product from one form to another (as in making preserves from spices, fruits and vegetables). In simpler words it is any method used to turn fresh food into food products.

The Food processing industry (FPI) deals with the processing of agricultural produce, spices, fruits and vegetables into easily consumable food materials. Food processing industry holds an important place in boosting an economy and also plays a vital role in influencing the overall health index of a nation.

Food processing typically takes butchered animals from agriculture, harvested crops from farmers, slaughtered animal products from farms and uses them as an aid to produce marketable and often high life expiry products along with consumer attractive in nature products.

The methods of food processing

There is a huge list of various methods of food processing. The most commonly used techniques of food processing include:

• Canning 
• Peeling of unwanted outer layers, such as cucumber or mango peeling.
• Chopping, such as to produce diced radish.
• Mincing or macerating
• Liquefaction, such as to produce fruit juice (orange juice)
• Fermentation, as in bee breweries
• Emulsification
• Cooking, by any method such as boiling, frying, grilling, broiling or steaming
• Mixing

Gasification (adding gas to soft drinks to increase durability)

• Proofing 
• Spray drying
• Pasteurization
• Modified atmosphere packaging 
• freezing
• Additives

Benefits 

With the growth in development more and more people are living in cities aloof from the lands of agricultural produce yet have access to the consumable processed agriculture produce, fruits and vegetables. Many people live away from their families and don’t have time to prepare food based on the fresh fruits and vegetables, but FPI meets all of these situations and provides processed food, ranging from peeled peas or frozen mixed vegetables to cooked dry food which just needs to be boiled, and your meal is ready.

The various benefits of processed fruits and vegetables are:

• Removal of toxins
• substantial increase in food consistency
• High seasonal availability of various fruits and vegetables
• Extra added nutrients such as vitamins and proteins
• Less susceptible to early spoilage 
• Availability over almost everywhere
• High distribution
• Protection from pathogenic microbes
• Convenient in nature

Drawbacks 

There are various drawbacks of processed food as well, these are given as followed:

• High ratio of calories to other essential nutrients, for example, most of the junk foods like pizzas, burgers, etc.
•  They carry less nutrients as compared to fresh fruits and vegetables.

For example – vitamin c is destroyed due to heat during the processing of food.

• May have a lower nutritional value due to the food processing methods indulged in making the product

For example-these food include flavors and texture enhancing agents.

• Contains harmful preservatives, like nitrites or sulfites, which may cause severe health deterioration.

High in cost due to the costly process of food processing.

Conclusion

The topic of the fruits and vegetables has looked into what is food processing or FPI meaning. Moreover, it has also looked into the benefits and drawbacks of processing agricultural produce; spices, fruits and vegetables in detail. The various food processing methods have also been discussed under the topic. The FAQs section attempts to address the most probable queries that might arise. The FAQs section provides additional information which will aid a better understanding of the topic.