This second edition of Water Activity in Foods furnishes those working within food manufacturing, quality control, and safety with a newly revised guide to water activity and its role in the preservation and processing of food items. With clear, instructional prose and illustrations, the book’s international team of contributors break down the essential principles of water activity and water–food interactions, delineating water’s crucial impact upon attributes such as flavor, appearance, texture, and shelf life. The updated and expanded second edition continues to offer an authoritative overview of the subject, while also broadening its scope to include six newly written chapters covering the latest developments in water activity research. Exploring topics ranging from deliquescence to crispness, these insightful new inclusions complement existing content that has been refreshed and reconfigured to support the food industry of today.
Water Activity and Food explores the role of water activity in the water relations of microorganisms and in food processing, packaging, and storage. It reviews the literature and provides numerous examples demonstrating the use of water activity to predict the reactions of microorganisms or the stability of food components. It also highlights cases where water activity is not a reliable predictor of events and considers some interesting interactions with other environmental parameters. Comprised of 11 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of water in foods and solutions, water activity values for foods, and water relations of enzyme activity. It then discusses lipid oxidation, enzyme reactions and non-enzymatic browning, and several other food-related factors. The reader is also introduced to water relations of microbial growth; the effects of water on microbial survival; the spoilage and preservation of foods at various levels of water activity; the water relations of food-borne pathogens such as Salmonella and toxigenic molds; the importance of water activity in non-microbiological aspects of food processing and storage; and the influence of atmospheric relative humidity on sanitation and the protection of food products. This book is an important source of information for researchers in food microbiology and microbial water relations.
Low water activity (aw) and dried foods such as dried dairy and meat products, grain-based and dried ready-to-eat cereal products, powdered infant formula, peanut and nut pastes, as well as flours and meals have increasingly been associated with product recalls and foodborne outbreaks due to contamination by pathogens such as Salmonella spp. and enterohemorrhagic E. coli. In particular, recent foodborne outbreaks and product recalls related to Salmonella-contaminated spices have raised the level of public health concern for spices as agents of foodborne illnesses. Presently, most spices are grown outside the U.S., mainly in 8 countries: India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, Peru, Madagascar, Mexico and Vietnam. Many of these countries are under-developed and spices are harvested and stored with little heed to sanitation. The FDA has regulatory oversight of spices in the United States; however, the agency’s control is largely limited to enforcing regulatory compliance through sampling and testing only after imported foodstuffs have crossed the U.S. border. Unfortunately, statistical sampling plans are inefficient tools for ensuring total food safety. As a result, the development and use of decontamination treatments is key. This book provides an understanding of the microbial challenges to the safety of low aw foods, and a historic backdrop to the paradigm shift now highlighting low aw foods as vehicles for foodborne pathogens. Up-to-date facts and figures of foodborne illness outbreaks and product recalls are included. Special attention is given to the uncanny ability of Salmonella to persist under dry conditions in food processing plants and foods. A section is dedicated specifically to processing plant investigations, providing practical approaches to determining sources of persistent bacterial strains in the industrial food processing environment. Readers are guided through dry cleaning, wet cleaning and alternatives to processing plant hygiene and sanitation. Separate chapters are devoted to low aw food commodities of interest including spices, dried dairy-based products, low aw meat products, dried ready-to-eat cereal products, powdered infant formula, nuts and nut pastes, flours and meals, chocolate and confectionary, dried teas and herbs, and pet foods. The book provides regulatory testing guidelines and recommendations as well as guidance through methodological and sampling challenges to testing spices and low aw foods for the presence of foodborne pathogens. Chapters also address decontamination processes for low aw foods, including heat, steam, irradiation, microwave, and alternative energy-based treatments.
This book presents the proceedings of the Tenth Basic Symposium sponsored by the Institute of Food Technologists and the International Union of Food Science and Technology. The key aim of the Symposium was to explore some basic principles relating to the influences of water activity on food quality.
An illustrated activity book for 8-11 year olds. Water connects all physical and spiritual life. Besides being essential for life, water is the visible sign of Baptism, which calls us to serve others in the world. Having clean water for all God’s children is an act of justice, love, respect and a core value of what it means to be a Christian. This illustrated workbook taps into multiple learning levels and offers a variety of ways for children to interact with this core value of our faith, making a direct connection for young people between their faith and daily life. It can be used in an educational or devotional setting at home, church, or school. Activities also connect clean water and the Millennium Development Goals.
This second edition of Water Activity in Foods furnishes those working within food manufacturing, quality control, and safety with a newly revised guide to water activity and its role in the preservation and processing of food items. With clear, instructional prose and illustrations, the book’s international team of contributors break down the essential principles of water activity and water–food interactions, delineating water’s crucial impact upon attributes such as flavor, appearance, texture, and shelf life. The updated and expanded second edition continues to offer an authoritative overview of the subject, while also broadening its scope to include six newly written chapters covering the latest developments in water activity research. Exploring topics ranging from deliquescence to crispness, these insightful new inclusions complement existing content that has been refreshed and reconfigured to support the food industry of today.
Water Activity: Influences on Food Quality is a collection of papers presented at the 1978 International Symposium by the same title, held in Osaka, Japan. This book is a treatise on the influence of bound and free water on the quality and stability of foods and other natural products. This book is organized into seven sections encompassing 33 chapters. The first sections deal with the characterization of moisture sorption isotherms based on both theoretical and applied considerations, as well as the relationship of bound water to the physical and chemical properties of natural products, including foods. The succeeding sections consider the structure of water and the influence of solutes and solute mobility on water activity and the influence of water and water activity on the structural and functional characteristics of proteins, carbohydrates, and proteins. Other sections explore the influence of water activity and temperature on the rates of several important chemical reactions, such as lipid oxidation, vitamin decomposition, browning, and other reactions, which affect the chemical, physical, and nutritional properties of food. These sections also discuss the influence of water activity on food processing and storage practices from both theoretical and applied viewpoints, specifically the application of water activity principals to the processing and preservation of leafy vegetables, cheese, dried fish, and other products. The final section is devoted to the influences of water activity on the behavior of food-related microorganisms. This section emphasizes the role of solvents in controlling water activity and the related survival of certain microorganisms. This book will prove useful to food scientists and researchers.
Wiley's landmark food chemistry textbook that provides an all-in-one reference book, revised and updated The revised second edition of The Chemistry of Food provides a comprehensive overview of important compounds constituting of food and raw materials for food production. The authors highlight food’s structural features, chemical reactions, organoleptic properties, nutritional, and toxicological importance. The updated second edition reflects the thousands of new scientific papers concerning food chemistry and related disciplines that have been published since 2012. Recent discoveries deal with existing as well as new food constituents, their origin, reactivity, degradation, reactions with other compounds, organoleptic, biological, and other important properties. The second edition extends and supplements the current knowledge and presents new facts about chemistry, legislation, nutrition, and food safety. The main chapters of the book explore the chemical structure of substances and subchapters examine the properties or uses. This important resource: • Offers in a single volume an updated text dealing with food chemistry • Contains complete and fully up-to-date information on food chemistry, from structural features to applications • Features several visual aids including reaction schemes, diagrams and tables, and nearly 2,000 chemical structures • Written by internationally recognized authors on food chemistry Written for upper-level students, lecturers, researchers and the food industry, the revised second edition of The Chemistry of Food is a quick reference for almost anything food-related as pertains to its chemical properties and applications.
Written by the world's leading scientists and spanning over 400 articles in three volumes, the Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology, Second Edition is a complete, highly structured guide to current knowledge in the field. Fully revised and updated, this encyclopedia reflects the key advances in the field since the first edition was published in 1999 The articles in this key work, heavily illustrated and fully revised since the first edition in 1999, highlight advances in areas such as genomics and food safety to bring users up-to-date on microorganisms in foods. Topics such as DNA sequencing and E. coli are particularly well covered. With lists of further reading to help users explore topics in depth, this resource will enrich scientists at every level in academia and industry, providing fundamental information as well as explaining state-of-the-art scientific discoveries. This book is designed to allow disparate approaches (from farmers to processors to food handlers and consumers) and interests to access accurate and objective information about the microbiology of foods Microbiology impacts the safe presentation of food. From harvest and storage to determination of shelf-life, to presentation and consumption. This work highlights the risks of microbial contamination and is an invaluable go-to guide for anyone working in Food Health and Safety Has a two-fold industry appeal (1) those developing new functional food products and (2) to all corporations concerned about the potential hazards of microbes in their food products
