Food Science Note
Food Science Note
Food Science Note
Preface xiii
VII
VIII Food Science
Water
Water is present in most natural foods to the extent of 70% of their weight or greater.
Fruits and vegetables may contain 90% or even 95% water. Cooked meat from which
some of the water has been driven off still contains about 60% water. Water greatly
affects the texture offoods-a raisin is a dehydrated grape, and a prune, a dried plum.
The form in which water occurs in foods to a large extent dictates the physical properties
of the food. For example, fluid milk and apples contain approximately the same amount
of water but have different physical structures.
Water greatly affects the keeping qualities of food, which is one reason for removing
it from foods, either partially as in evaporation and concentration, or nearly completely
as in true food dehydration. When foods are frozen, water as such also is removed,
since water is most active in foods in its liquid form. As a liquid in foods, it is the
solvent for numerous food chemicals and thus promotes chemical reactions between
the dissolved constituents. It also is necessary for microbial growth.
The other reason for removing water from food (in addition to preservation) is to
reduce the weight and bulk of the food and thus save on packaging and shipping costs.
A great deal of food science and food technology can be described in terms of the
manipulation of the water content of foods: its removal, its freezing, its emulsification,
and its addition in the case of dissolving or reconstituting dehydrated foods.
Water exists in foods in various ways-as free water in the case of tomato juice, as
droplets of emulsified water in the case of butter, as water tied up in colloidal gels in
gelatin desserts, as a thin layer of adsorbed water on the surface of solids often contrib-
uting to caking as in dried milk, and as chemically bound water of hydration as in
some sugar crystals.
Some of these bound water forms are extremely difficult to remove from foods even
by drying, and many dehydrated foods with as little as 2-3% residual water have their
storage stability markedly shortened.
Close control of final water content is essential in the production of numerous foods:
as little as 1-2% of excess water can result in such common defects as molding of
wheat, bread crusts becoming tough and rubbery, soggy potato chips, and caking of
salt and sugar. Many skills in food processing involve the removal of these slight
excesses of water without simultaneously damaging the other food constituents. On