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Nova Classification
The Nova classification (, 'new classification') is a framework for grouping edible substances based on the extent and purpose of food processing applied to them. Researchers at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, proposed the system in 2009. Nova classifies food into four groups: # Unprocessed or minimally processed foods # Processed culinary ingredients # Processed foods # Ultra-processed foods The system has been used worldwide in nutrition and public health research, policy, and guidance as a tool for understanding the health implications of different food products. History The Nova classification grew out of the research of Carlos Augusto Monteiro. Born in 1948 into a family straddling the divide between poverty and relative affluence in Brazil, Monteiro's journey began as the first member of his family to attend university. His early research in the late 1970s focused on malnutrition, reflecting the prevailing emphasis in nutrition science of the time. In the mid-1990s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algae
Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, such as cyanobacteria, ''Chlorella'', and diatoms, to multicellular macroalgae such as kelp or brown algae which may grow up to in length. Most algae are aquatic organisms and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem, and phloem that are found in embryophyte, land plants. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds. In contrast, the most complex freshwater forms are the Charophyta, a Division (taxonomy), division of green algae which includes, for example, ''Spirogyra'' and stoneworts. Algae that are carried passively by water are plankton, specifically phytoplankton. Algae constitute a Polyphyly, polyphyletic group because they do not include a common ancestor, and although Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eggs As Food
Humans and other hominids have consumed eggs for millions of years. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especially chickens. People in Southeast Asia began harvesting chicken eggs for food by 1500 BCE. Eggs of other birds, such as ducks and ostriches, are eaten regularly but much less commonly than those of chickens. People may also eat the eggs of reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Fish eggs consumed as food are known as roe or caviar. Hens and other egg-laying creatures are raised throughout the world, and mass production of chicken eggs is a global industry. In 2009, an estimated 62.1 million metric tons of eggs were produced worldwide from a total laying flock of approximately 6.4 billion hens. There are issues of regional variation in demand and expectation, as well as current debates concerning methods of mass production. In 2012, the European Union banned battery husbandry of chickens. History Bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meat
Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and cattle, starting around 11,000 years ago. Since then, selective breeding has enabled farmers to produce meat with the qualities desired by producers and consumers. Meat is mainly composed of water, protein, and fat. Its quality is affected by many factors, including the genetics, health, and nutritional status of the animal involved. Without preservation, bacteria and fungi decompose and Meat spoilage, spoil unprocessed meat within hours or days. Meat is Raw meat, edible raw, but it is mostly eaten cooked, such as by stewing or roasting, or Processed meat, processed, such as by Smoking (cooking), smoking or Salting (food), salting. The consumption of meat (especially Red meat, red and processed meat, as opposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legume
Legumes are plants in the pea family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seeds of such plants. When used as a dry grain for human consumption, the seeds are also called pulses. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, but also as livestock forage and silage, and as soil-enhancing green manure. Legumes produce a botanically unique type of fruit – a simple fruit, simple Dry fruits, dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually Dehiscence (botany) , dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. Most legumes have Symbiosis , symbiotic nitrogen fixation , nitrogen-fixing bacteria, Rhizobia, in structures called root nodules. Some of the fixed nitrogen becomes available to later crops, so legumes play a key role in crop rotation. Terminology The term ''pulse'', as used by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is reserved for legume crops harvested solely for the dry seed. This excludes green beans and Pea , green ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes. After being harvested, dry grains are more durable than other staple foods, such as starchy fruits (plantain (cooking), plantains, breadfruit, etc.) and tubers (sweet potatoes, cassava, and more). This durability has made grains well suited to industrial agriculture, since they can be mechanically harvested, transported by rail or ship, stored for long periods in silos, and mill (grinding), milled for flour or expeller pressing, pressed for Seed oil, oil. Thus, the grain market is a major global commodity market that includes crops such as maize, rice, soybeans, wheat and other grains. Cereal and non-cereal grains In the grass family, a grain (narrowly defined) is a caryopsis, a fruit with its wall fused on to the single seed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vegetable
Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including edible flower, flowers, fruits, edible plant stem, stems, leaf vegetable, leaves, list of root vegetables, roots, and list of edible seeds, seeds. An alternative definition is applied somewhat arbitrarily, often by culinary and cultural tradition; it may include savoury fruits such as tomatoes and courgettes, flowers such as broccoli, and seeds such as Pulse (legume), pulses, but exclude foods derived from some plants that are fruits, flowers, nut (fruit), nuts, and cereal grains. Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by hunter-gatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new History of agriculture, agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants that g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other animals, have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language and culinary usage, ''fruit'' normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet (or sour) and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term ''fruit'' als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae d ..., fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double sugars, are molecules made of two bonded monosaccharides; common examples are sucrose (glucose + fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose), and maltose (two molecules of glucose). White sugar is almost pure sucrose. In the body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars. Longer chains of monosaccharides (>2) are not regarded as sugars and are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Starch is a glucose polymer found in plants, the most abundant source of energy in human foo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salt
In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as rock salt or halite. Salt is essential for life in general (being the source of the essential dietary minerals sodium and chlorine), and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and is known to uniformly improve the taste perception of food. Salting, brining, and pickling are ancient and important methods of food preservation. Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6000 BC, when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was prized by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Hittites, Egyptians, and Indians. Salt became a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freezing
Freezing is a phase transition in which a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point. For most substances, the melting and freezing points are the same temperature; however, certain substances possess differing solid-liquid transition temperatures. For example, agar displays a Hysteresis#Liquid–solid-phase transitions, hysteresis in its melting point and freezing point. It melts at and solidifies from . Crystallization Most liquids freeze by crystallization, formation of crystal, crystalline solid from the uniform liquid. This is a first-order thermodynamic phase transition, which means that as long as solid and liquid coexist, the temperature of the whole system remains very nearly equal to the melting point due to the slow removal of heat when in contact with air, which is a poor heat conductor. Because of the latent heat of fusion, the freezing is greatly slowed and the temperature will not drop anymore once the freezing starts but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermentation
Fermentation is a type of anaerobic metabolism which harnesses the redox potential of the reactants to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and organic end products. Organic molecules, such as glucose or other sugars, are catabolized and reduced by donating their electrons to other organic molecules (cofactors, coenzymes, etc.). Fermentation is important in several areas of human society. Humans have used fermentation in the production and preservation of food for 13,000 years. It has been associated with health benefits, unique flavor profiles, and making products have better texture. Humans and their livestock also benefit from fermentation from the microbes in the gut that release end products that are subsequently used by the host for energy. Perhaps the most commonly known use for fermentation is at an industrial level to produce commodity chemicals, such as ethanol and lactate. Ethanol is used in a variety of alcoholic beverages (beers, wine, and spirits) while lactate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
