Chapter 19 Agricultural and Related Technology
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Food Processing
The conversion of harvested crops into
food that is ready to eat is called processing.
This is not just a single process, however.
Processing includes many different
processes, which vary depending on the
food being processed. At the processing
plants, skilled workers perform many jobs,
including sorting, washing, peeling, slicing,
roasting, grinding, canning, flash freezing,
boxing, cooking, adding preservatives,
and packaging.
Early humans ate their food exactly as
they found it. They ate fruits, nuts, leaves,
and roots as they gathered them. These
humans even ate the fish and game they
hunted without cooking it. These people
began cooking, with the discovery of fire,
about 1 million years ago. This is the first
way food was processed.
Cooking makes food softer and easier
to digest. The heat kills bacteria that might
cause the food to rot or make you sick.
Figure 19-29. Biotechnology can be used to develop crops yielding more food and resisting diseases
and pests.
Figure 19-30. Foods must go through a lengthy
transportation chain before you can buy them in
your grocery store.