Jam Making: The Science and Tradition of Preserved Fruits

Fruit jams, a delightful blend of preserved fruits and sugars, are typically canned or sealed for long-term storage. This preservation and processing are vital to maintaining the quality of the end products. Jam making involves disrupting the fruit tissue and heating it with added water and sugar to activate its pectin, which is then put into containers.

Pectin, a naturally occurring polysaccharide found in many fruits, is crucial for the gelling property of jams. Most fruit jellies and jams contain about 1% pectin. Some fruits have enough natural pectin to form a gel, while others require additional pectin, either commercial or natural, to achieve the desired consistency. For a jam to gel properly, it must contain the right combination of fruit, pectin, acid, and sugar. The fruit provides the unique flavor and color that characterize each variety of jam.

In the manufacturing process, fruits and sugar are mixed in similar proportions. The mixture is then cooked to produce a delicious substance with sufficient storage capabilities. Through extreme thermal treatment, the mix is concentrated to achieve the necessary final total soluble solid content. Typically, the minimum amount of fruit in the final product varies from about 35–45 wt %, with insoluble solids ranging from 0.9 to 10 wt %.

Sugar plays multiple roles in jam making: it helps preserve the jam, enhances its flavor, and aids in the gelling process. Granulated white sugar is most commonly used in jam production. Fruits such as lemons, cranberries, apples, and apricots are popular choices due to their flavors and pectin content.

Fruits are high in fiber, water, sugars, minerals, and enzymes. Regular consumption of fruits can significantly reduce the risk of various health conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and cataracts. They are also vital sources of vitamin C, which is necessary for activating antibodies and combating diseases in the body. For example, the vitamin C content in fruits like oranges and strawberries enhances the immune system, while the antioxidants in berries can protect against oxidative stress and inflammation.

Moreover, the evolving food industry has seen innovations in jam production, such as the introduction of low-sugar and sugar-free options to cater to health-conscious consumers. These products use alternative sweeteners and natural preservatives, maintaining the jam's appeal while addressing dietary concerns.

In conclusion, the art of jam making is a blend of science and tradition, where the careful selection and processing of fruits, combined with the right balance of ingredients, result in a product that is both delicious and beneficial to health.
Jam Making: The Science and Tradition of Preserved Fruits

Agar: Efficient Seaweed Binder

Agar agar functions as an exceptionally effective binding and gelling agent, sourced from diverse red seaweeds within the Rhodophyceae class. These seaweeds, identified as agarophytes, produce a substance through boiling that, when properly filtered and dried, has the capability to solidify various liquids.

The agar concentration in seaweeds undergoes fluctuations based on seawater conditions, including carbon dioxide concentration, oxygen tension, water temperature, and solar radiation intensity.

Derived from red algae, agar is a galactose-based heterogeneous polysaccharide, composed of agarose and agaropectin polymers. A typical composition comprises 70% agarose and 30% agaropectin.

Agarose, classified as a polysaccharide, constructs a chain of repeating agarobiose units, contributing to the distinct structure of agarophyte algae.
Agar: Efficient Seaweed Binder

Vitamin E

Vitamin E
Vitamin E, of which there are four different forms (the tocopherols), is fat soluble.

The four have the same name except with the prefixes alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-, ( the first four letters of the Greek alphabet). The four compounds are closely related, with some difference in the molecular weight and in the position and number of certain molecular constituents.

This vitamin is an antioxidant that serves to prevent the oxidation of some body components, such as unsaturated fatty acids, and is necessary for reproduction.

Almost all foods contain some vitamin E, although corn oil, cottonseed oil, margarine, and peanut oil are especially good sources of this vitamin.

While the symptoms for vitamin E deficiency in humans are not clearly established , experiments with various animals have shown that vitamin E deficiency has an adverse effect on reproduction with apparent irreversible injury to the germinal epithelium.

Other symptoms noted in animal studies include injury to the central nervous system, growth retardation, muscular dystrophy, and interference with normal heart action.
Vitamin E

Vitamin D

Vitamin D
Vitamin D (calciferol or activated ergosterol) is fat soluble. This vitamin is necessary fro normal tooth and bone formation.

Deficiencies in vitamin D result in rickets (deformities of bone, such as bow legs and curvature of the spine) and teeth defects.

Fish oils, and especially fish liver oils, are excellent sources of vitamin D. The human body also able to synthesize this vitamin from components of the skin through exposure to ultraviolet or sunlight. Vitamin D is routinely added to milk.
Vitamin D

Vitamin A

Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin. It is found only in animals, although a number of plants contain carotene, from which vitamin A can be produced in the body once the plants contain carotene are eaten.

Vitamin A may be formed in the body from the yellow pigments (containing carotene) of many fruits and vegetables, especially carrots. Vitamin A is required for vision.

Epithelial cells (those cells present in the lining of body cavities and in the skin and glands) require vitamin A. This vitamin also required for resistance to infection.

Deficiency of Vitamin A may cause impairment in bone formation, impairment of night vision, malfunction of epithelial tissues, and defect inn the enamel of teeth.
Vitamin A

Fats

Fats
Fats are glyceryl ester of fatty acids. Fats, as do carbohydrates, contains the element of carbons, oxygen and hydrogen, but proportion of oxygen in fats is less, and it to be said that fats are fuel foods of more concentrated type than are carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates and fats are interchangeable as fuel foods, but it can be shown, by calorimetry, that fats produce more than twice the heat energy produced by carbohydrates.

One grams of fats yields 9 cal, while 1 gram of carbohydrates yields 4 cal. An additional advantage of fat from the view point of energy availability is that it stores well in large amount of adipose tissue. Thus fat, considered to be a reserve from of fuel for the body.

Paradoxically, this is not advantageous in affluent societies where the problem is not availability of food energy, but rather health hazard of obesity.

Fats may occur in foods as materials that are solid at room temperature or as oils that are liquid at room temperature.

Solid fat contain comparatively small amounts of fatty acids with two or more groups of adjacent carbons that are not fully saturated with hydrogen.
Fats

Starches

Starches
Starches are carbohydrates that are storage materials in the seed and roots of many plants. Corn, wheat, rice and other grains, as potatoes and other rootlike vegetables, contain significant amount of starch.

Starch is, made up of many units of glucose linked together in different forms. In the intestine, starch is broken down top glucose and utilized of energy.

Cooling (moist heat) causes starch grains to swell and rupture, thus converting starch to a form that is readily digested.

In the body, much of the glucose may be utilized directly as a source of energy, but some of it is converted into fat, the muscles utilizing fatty acids indirectly as fuel for energy.

Excess carbohydrates, not required for energy, when ingested (eaten) will be stored in the body as fat.
Starches

Glycogen

Glycogen
Glycogen is produced in the liver from glucose. And it is stored in the liver, as well as in the muscle where it is available for immediate use as energy.

Both liver and the muscles can store only a limited amount of glycogen; therefore, when an excess of carbohydrates is ingested, there will be a tendency to develop an excess of glycogen.

The excess carbohydrates will then be converted to fat and stored in body as fat.

The body maintains equilibrium between glucose, the energy-producing sugar, and glycogen, which can be converted to glucose as the glucose in the blood used up to produce energy.

The production of energy from glucose involves oxidation of sugar with the release of water and carbon dioxide, which are easily removed from the body.
Glycogen

Fibers

Food Science
Dietery fibers include the nondigestible carbohydrates. These may be either water soluble or water insoluble. Both have nutritional significance. The water insoluble group that includes wheat products and wheat bran is believed to reduce chances of colon cancer by increasing bulk and diluting the effect of secondary bile acids.

The soluble fibers such as those found in the brans of some cereals (e.g. oats and rice) and in pectin are believed to lower the levels of serum cholesterol by binding bile acids and causing removal of cholesterol in the feces.

While the claims may be made for cholesterol level lowering properties of brans from different grains (e.g., the bran from oats and the bran from psyllium seed, which have much higher amounts of bran than that of other grains), the more productive course for trying to control cholesterol level is limit the consumption of foods that are high in cholesterol and high in fats.
Food Science

The Goals of Modern Food processing

The Goals of Modern Food processing
Formulation
A logical basic sequence of steps to produce an acceptable and quality food product from raw materials.

Easy production procedure
Develop methods that can facilitate the various steps of production.

Time economy
A cohesive plan that combines the science of production and manual labor to reduce the time needed to produce the product.

Consistency
Application of modern science and technology to assure the consistency of each batch of products.

Product and worker safety
The government and the manufacturers work closely to make sure that the product is wholesome for public consumption and the workers work in a safe environment.

Buyer friendliness
Assuming the buyer dislikes the product, the manufacturer must do everything humanly possible to ensure that the product is user friendly (size, cooking instructions, keeping quality, convenience, etc).

Obviously, to achieve all these goals is not a simple matter. The first question is why do we want to process food?

At present, there are many modern reasons why foods are processed, for example, adding value to a food, improving visual appeal and convenience.

However, traditionally the single most important reason we wish to process food is to make last longer without spoiling.

Probably the oldest methods of achieving this goal are the salting of meat and fish, the fermenting of milk and the pickling of vegetable.
The Goals of Modern Food processing

Composition of Cow’s Milk

Cow’s milk is made up of about 87% of water and 13% milk component or milk solids. The milk solids consist of a fat portion or butterfat accounting for 3.7% of the milk and a solids not fat portion, accounting for 8.9% of the milk.

SNF or solid no fat const sod three categories: lactose, minerals and proteins.

Cow’s milk is a nutrient dense food, providing a high concentration of nutrients in relation to its energy.

Milk also contains vitamins and other nutrients in small amounts, making it the most complete of foods. The young mammalians survive on it exclusively.

The principle proteins of milk are casein and whey proteins. These are high quality proteins, together containing, in varying amounts, all of the essential amino acids required for human growth and tissue maintenance.


Casein, is accounted for 77% of the protein component. These are bound tighter with calcium phosphate into particles known as micelles.

However, components of milk from different species vary, and occasionally the young of one species may be unable to tolerate the milk from another species, mainly because of differences in the lactose contained therein.

The fat content of milk from Ayrshire and Brown Swiss, and especially from Guernsey and Jersey breeds, is slightly higher than that from Holstein cows, but the latter breed generally produces much more milk than the others.
Composition of Cow’s Milk

Food Scientist Overview

Food science is the discipline in which biology, physical science and engineering are used to study the nature of foods, the causes of their deteriorations, and the principles underlying food processing.

Food scientists is the scientist who study food science. They study physical, microbiological, and chemical, makeup-of food; develop ways of process, preserve, package, and store it, according to the specifications and regulations of industry and government.

Generally, food scientist conduct basic and applied research to develop new practices and products related to food and agriculture.

People buy food in containers. Yet seldom think of the vast food industry and the researchers who develop the means to deliver tasty, nutritious, convenient, and safe foods.

One of the area research by food scientists is food processing. Food processing has a long history. For thousand of years people salted, dried. Smoked pickled, and chilled their foods. Canned and frozen foods are fairly recent development. Dried and freeze-dried foods are now common. Researchers over the years have found new and better ways to process, package, and preserve foods from the time of the harvest to the time they go on the table.

Competent food scientist are fully aware of the existing constraints and the needs of both the agriculture producers and the food industries and thus will produce more feasible technologies.

The food processing industry is vital to the economy. Food scientists hold an important place in their field. Their efforts make more nutritious food available to the public, to the developing countries suffering from famine.

Many food scientist work in academic and government settings, where they conduct basic research to gain new knowledge and understanding about the composition and properties of different foods – meats, dairy products, grains, vegetables and fruit.

Food scientists also involved in establishing international food standards to promote an facilitate world trade.
Food Scientist Overview

Pantothenic acid or vitamin B5

The name of pantothenic acid name comes from the Greek would ‘pantothen’, meaning “from every side” in reference to its ubiquitous occurrence after it was found to have a similar function in lactic acid bacteria, chicks, and rats.

Pantothenic acid also known as vitamin B5, was first discovered as an essential growth factor for yeast cells.

It was isolated in 1938 by Dr. Williams.

Pantothenic acid, a vitamin required for normal growth, nerve development, and normal skin is a component of enzyme systems involved in metabolism (e.g., acetylation processes). It is believed, and there is evidence, that pantothenic acid is intimately related to riboflavin in human nutrition.

Pantothenic acid is a component of coenzyme A (CoA), which in turn a component of acetyl CoA. Acetyl CoA sits at the crossroads of a number of metabolic pathways – both energy generating pathways and biosynthetic pathways.

CoA is essential for the production of ATP from the metabolism of carbohydrate, protein and fat.

Pantothenic acid functions as the prosthetic group for acyl carrier protein, an important component of the fatty acid synthase complex that is involved in the synthesis of fatty acids. It was demonstrated that mild pantoithenate deficiency in rats caused increase serum and free fatty fatty acid levels.

There is some indication that pantothenic acid helps improve our ability to heal and withstand the stress of physical injury.
Pantothenic acid or vitamin B5

Biotin

Biotin is a water soluble vitamin that is generally classified in the B complex group.

Biotin is reported to be coenzyme in the synthesize of aspartic acid, which plays a part in a deaminase system and in other processes involving the fixation of carbon dioxide.

Biotin concentration in plasma are small relative those of other water soluble vitamins. Most biotin in plasma is free, dissolved in the aqueous phase of plasma.

Deficiency of this compound is unusual, but can be demonstrated by the feeding of raw egg white, which contains the substance, avidin, which ties up biotin.

Because some anticonvulsant drugs breakdown biotin, people who take then for long periods also risk a deficiency.

Infants born with biotinidase deficiency suffer from a rare genetic defect that leads to biotin depletion.

Deficiency of biotin cause scaling skin, skin lesions, and a deterioration of nerve fibers.

Due to production of biotin by the microbial flora of the intestine, the requirement for this compound is not known.

The deficiency also can delay growth and development.

Biotin is widely distributed in foods and feedstuff, but mostly in very low concentration.

Liver is an excellent source of biotin, and peanuts, peas, beans and whole cooked eggs are good sources.

Most fruits and meats rank as poor source.
Biotin

Niacin and Pyridoxine

Both niacin and Pyridoxine are under group of vitamin B.

Niacin
Niacin or nicotinic acid is another B vitamin. Niacin is part of coenzyme that participates in the production and breakdown of carbohydrates, fatty acids, and amino acids.

It is also a compound that dilates blood vessel. Deficiency on niacin causes pellagra a (disease that causes diarrhea, dermatitis, nervous disorders, and sometimes death).

In industrialized country, particularly among alcoholics, niacin deficiency may present with only encephalopathy.

Niacin comes from the diet, but the body can also manufacture it from the amino acid tryptophan, with riboflavin helping out in the process.

Adults require 13-20 mg niacin. In pregnancy, lactation and active muscular work, niacin requirement is further increased by 3-4 mg. Children require 5-16 mg niacin.

Beef, hog, and lamb livers are excellent sources of niacin. Other organs and the musculature of these animals are good to fair sources.

Pyridoxine
Pyridoxine (vitamin B6) is part of the enzyme systems that removes CO2 from the acid group (COOH) of certain amino acids and transfers amine groups (NH2) from one compound to another in the body.

It is also needed for the utilization of certain amino acids.

Pyridoxine also participates involved in the production of neurotransmitters, the chemicals signaling agents of the nervous system. This including dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine and gamma aminobutyric acid.

Pyridoxine is unique in that both the deficiency and toxic states result in neurological symptoms.
Deficiency manifestations are dermatitis around the eyes, eyebrows, and angels of the mouth.

There are also a sensory neuritis, and a decrease in certain white blood cells and an increase in others.

Prolonged deficiency leads to fall in hemoglobin, mental depression, confusion, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal distension and convulsions.

Bananas, barley, beef and beef organs, cabbage, raw carrots , yellow corn, lamb and organ of lamb, malt, molasses, tomatoes, tuna and wheat bran.
Niacin and Pyridoxine

Food science and health

The optimum physical and mental functioning of the body is dependant on the nutritional quality of the foods it received.

Human have observed this since from beginning time and certain diets have been evolved as a result of these observations.

The analysis and planning of diets were not possible until food science become established to a degree and produce the basic information that made these activities possible.

Food science is an interdisciplinary field that evoked first from chemistry, then microbiology and medicine. Since then biochemistry, nutrition, toxicology, mathematics, physics, engineering, psychology, genetics, biotechnology and law have become integral part.

People do not eat nutrients, they eat food. In order to have a good understanding of the influence of diet on health and what the components of a healthy diet are, it is necessary to have some understanding food science.

From the knowledge acquired through the development of food science emerged conclusions that resulted in the classifications of foods into nutritional groups, representatives of which are considered to be necessary in all intake of a recommended minimum of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and so on.

Evidence of the links between diets and certain symptoms of ill health became easier to obtain as food science developed, and the potential of specific diets in correctives and preventive medicine has been gradually recognize and is now effectively practice.

Food scientists work in conjunction with nutritionists to develop standards for the optimal nutritional content of the diet and to determine how food processing and storage affects nutrients.

The important of this is to investigate how food formulation affects the bioavailability of nutrients. For example, ascorbic acid can increase the bioavailability of iron in the diet.

Food science is responding to present day and expected future health and safety trends.

The use of sciences such as biotechnology, genetic engineering, computer technology, microbiology and chemistry will allow the food scientist to help bring to the marketplace new foods that will meet the needs and desires of the consumer.

For example, convenience foods, low calories and low fat foods, quick methodologies such as gene probes as biosensors for detection of harmful microbes.

Food science will play significant role in future of the world’s food supply and the health and quality of life of its human inhabitants.
Food science and health