What is the meaning of food processing?

Food as a material should not be studied in isolation; individual foods and the process of making food products are interlinked.

These processes may be relatively simple such as the milling of wheat to produce flour or highly complex such as creating a pizza that be cooked in a toaster.

Developing new complex today involves a lot of research experimentation, testing , testing and trialing.

A small scale recipe for a chicken korma cannot simply be multiplied up and used on a production line to create tens of thousands of meals.

Large scale machinery may affect food in a different way to a domestic cooker, causing meat to become tough or a sauce to runny.

The changes that are needed may only be subtle but they can make the difference between a profitable new product and a costly failure.

Processing foods can also involve preserving them and the latest techniques include accelerated freeze drying, irradiation and the production of dried fruits that do not require soaking.

Some preservation methods stem from the past when people had to preserved foods in order to have sufficient food all year round.

Fruits were turned into jam, onions were pickled and meals were cured.

Processed food has changes dramatically as the needs of consumers have altered and as advances in food technology have occurred.
What is the meaning of food processing?