Food Technology Glossary

One of the three main nutrients in food (along with protein and fat). It is the body's main source of quick energy, mostly starches and sugars.

The main phosphoprotein of milk, about 80% of milk protein, existing as micelles stabilised by κ-casein. Precipitates at pH 4.6 or on rennet action.

Adding a permitted chemical preservative to food to stop or slow down the growth of microbes, instead of relying only on heat, cold, or drying.

A fat-like substance found in animal foods and also made naturally by the body, needed in small amounts but harmful to health in excess.

Fruit showing a sharp rise in respiration and ethylene production at the onset of ripening — banana, mango, apple, tomato — and able to ripen after harvest.

An anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium producing botulinum neurotoxin. Proteolytic types do not grow below pH 4.6, aw 0.94 or 10 °C.

The international collection of food standards, guidelines and codes of practice of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.

An unbroken chain of refrigerated storage and transport that keeps a food cold from the time it is produced until it reaches the customer.

The slowest-heating location in a container, where lethality accumulates least during thermal processing.

The condition in which no microorganisms capable of growing under normal storage conditions remain, though highly heat-resistant spores may survive.

Removing part of the water from a liquid food, usually by evaporation, to make it thicker and reduce its volume for storage or transport.

The first stage of drying, in which free surface water evaporates at a steady rate and the surface stays at the wet bulb temperature.