Health through Convenience: The Technological Challenge
Special Symposium - Innovations in Food Technology (LMC Congress)
Meals - Convenience, Gastronomy & Quality (Food-1a)
Keywords: health, convenience, vegetables, food service
A prevalent and undisputed advice in guidelines for healthy eating is to increase the consumption of vegetables. Consumers, who take most of their meals through food service (canteens and fast food outlets) and/or generally prefer to buy ready-made meals, are, however, in practice faced with a limited availability of meals that are both attractive and rich in vegetables. Many consumers, in particular men and the elderly, often find raw vegetables too hard and bulky to be attractive. In fast-food outlets, raw cut vegetables usually fit poorly into bread-based fast foods meant for eating “on the go”, because the vegetables are bulky, stiff or watery and there is a risk of spilling. A brief heat treatment can reduce bulkiness and soften the plant tissue while maintaining an appealing texture and appearance; however, this is complicated and labour-intensive to do properly in the kitchen facilities in canteens. In fact, it has been realised that there is a definite need for a supply of a wide variety of high-quality prepared vegetables in food service (Mikkelsen 2004). The same message is conveyed by international producers of high-class ready-made meals (Pennine Foods, UK to Jens Adler-Nissen, personal communication, 2006).
The paper will outline and discuss the barriers to increase the consumption of vegetables in food service, including fast food and ready-made meals. These barriers are not lack of knowledge of the health-promoting advantages of achieving this goal; the barriers are a complex of challenges rooted in inadequate technology and sub-optimal supply chain management (the latter will not be touched upon more than briefly, here). The technological issues that will be discussed are:
1) Strategies of heat treatment and the effects on product quality and environmental load.
2) Cooling versus freezing and the effects on product quality.
3) The critical convenience properties in food service.
4) Potential technologies for making vegetable-rich meal elements for fast food.
Several of the points discussed will be illustrated with experimental results and case studies from our ongoing research in industrial stir frying of vegetables (Adler-Nissen 2007). The discussion of the potential technologies are based on a recent observation that the mechanical properties of the stir-fried vegetables in a partially frozen state are not that of a brittle solid but exhibit a considerable plasticity that allows shaping, texturising and / or precision cutting.
References
Adler-Nissen, J. (2007). Continuous wok-frying of vegetables: Process parameters influencing scale up and product quality. J.Food Engineering, in print.
Mikkelsen, B. E. (ed.) 2004. Aktøranalyse indenfor cateringsektoren i Øresundsregionen, ØFN Discussion Paper 1, Øresund Food Network, Copenhagen.
Presented Wednesday 19, 15:00 to 15:20, in session Meals - Convenience, Gastronomy & Quality (Food-1open).
