A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.
There are many fad diets that create confusion about what is healthy and create unnecessary alarm about what might be unhealthy; these diets are aggressively marketed.
For people who are healthy, a healthy diet is not complicated, and contains mostly fruits and vegetables and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages. The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for those following a vegan diet. Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to be healthy. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.
A healthy lifestyle includes getting exercise every day along with eating a healthy diet. A healthy lifestyle may lower disease risks, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cancer.
There are specialized healthy diets, called medical nutrition therapy, for people with various diseases or conditions. There are also prescientific ideas about such specialized diets, as in dietary therapy in traditional Chinese medicine.
Video Healthy diet
Recommendations
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) makes the following 5 recommendations with respect to both populations and individuals:
Maintain a healthy weight by eating roughly the same number of calories that your body is using.
Limit intake of fats. Not more than 30% of the total calories should come from fats. Prefer unsaturated fats to saturated fats. Avoid trans fats.
Eat at least 400 grams of fruits and vegetables per day (potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots do not count). A healthy diet also contains legumes (e.g. lentils, beans), whole grains and nuts.
Limit the intake of simple sugars to less than 10% of calorie (below 5% of calories or 25 grams may be even better)
Limit salt / sodium from all sources and ensure that salt is iodized. Less than 5 grams of salt per day can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
WHO stated that insufficient vegetables and fruit is the cause of 2.8% of deaths worldwide.
Other WHO recommendations include ensuring that foods chosen have sufficient vitamins and certain minerals, avoiding directly poisonous (e.g. heavy metals) and carcinogenic (e.g. benzene) substances, avoiding foods contaminated by human pathogens (e.g. E. coli, tapeworm eggs), and replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats in the diet can reduce the risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes.
United States Department of Agriculture
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends three healthy patterns of diet, summarized in table below, for a 2000 kcal diet.
It emphasizes both health and environmental sustainability and a flexible approach: the committee that drafted it wrote: "The major findings regarding sustainable diets were that a diet higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in calories and animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with less environmental impact than is the current U.S. diet. This pattern of eating can be achieved through a variety of dietary patterns, including the "Healthy U.S.-style Pattern," the "Healthy Vegetarian Pattern," and the "Healthy Mediterranean-style Pattern". Food group amounts are per day, unless noted per week.
American Heart Association / World Cancer Research Fund / American Institute for Cancer Research
The American Heart Association, World Cancer Research Fund, and American Institute for Cancer Research recommend a diet that consists mostly of unprocessed plant foods, with emphasis a wide range of whole grains, legumes, and non-starchy vegetables and fruits. This healthy diet is full of a wide range of various non-starchy vegetables and fruits, that provide different colors including red, green, yellow, white, purple, and orange. They note that tomato cooked with oil, allium vegetables like garlic, and cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, provide some protection against cancer. This healthy diet is low in energy density, which may protect against weight gain and associated diseases. Finally, limiting consumption of sugary drinks, limiting energy rich foods, including "fast foods" and red meat, and avoiding processed meats improves health and longevity. Overall, researchers and medical policy conclude that this healthy diet can reduce the risk of chronic disease and cancer.
In children, consuming less than 25 grams of added sugar (100 calories) is recommended per day. Other recommendations include no extra sugars in those under 2 years old and less than one soft drink per week. As of 2017, decreasing total fat is no longer recommended, but instead, the recommendation to lower risk of cardiovascular disease is to increase consumption of monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, while decreasing consumption of saturated fats.
Harvard School of Public Health
The Nutrition Source of Harvard School of Public Health makes the following 10 recommendations for a healthy diet:
Choose good carbohydrates: whole grains (the less processed the better), vegetables, fruits and beans. Avoid white bread, white rice, and the like as well as pastries, sugared sodas, and other highly processed food.
Pay attention to the protein package: good choices include fish, poultry, nuts, and beans. Try to avoid red meat.
Choose foods containing healthy fats. Plant oils, nuts, and fish are the best choices. Limit consumption of saturated fats, and avoid foods with trans fat.
Choose a fiber-filled diet which includes whole grains, vegetables, and fruits.
Eat more vegetables and fruits--the more colorful and varied, the better.
Include adequate amounts of calcium in the diet; however, milk is not the best or only source. Good sources of calcium are collards, bok choy, fortified soy milk, baked beans, and supplements containing calcium and vitamin D.
Prefer water over other beverages. Avoid sugary drinks, and limit intake of juices and milk. Coffee, tea, artificially-sweetened drinks, 100-percent fruit juices, low-fat milk and alcohol can fit into a healthy diet but are best consumed in moderation. Sports drinks are recommended only for people who exercise more than an hour at a stretch to replace substances lost in sweat.
Limit salt intake. Choose more fresh foods, instead of processed ones.
Drink alcohol in moderation. Doing so has health benefits, but is not recommended for everyone.
Consider intake of daily multivitamin and extra vitamin D, as these have potential health benefits.
Other than nutrition, the guide recommends frequent physical exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight.
Others
David L. Katz, who reviewed the most prevalent popular diets in 2014, noted:
The weight of evidence strongly supports a theme of healthful eating while allowing for variations on that theme. A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches. Efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do. Knowledge in this case is not, as of yet, power; would that it were so.
Marion Nestle expresses the mainstream view among scientists who study nutrition:
The basic principles of good diets are so simple that I can summarize them in just ten words: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For additional clarification, a five-word modifier helps: go easy on junk foods. Follow these precepts and you will go a long way toward preventing the major diseases of our overfed society--coronary heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, and a host of others.... These precepts constitute the bottom line of what seem to be the far more complicated dietary recommendations of many health organizations and national and international governments--the forty-one "key recommendations" of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, for example. ... Although you may feel as though advice about nutrition is constantly changing, the basic ideas behind my four precepts have not changed in half a century. And they leave plenty of room for enjoying the pleasures of food.
Maps Healthy diet
For specific conditions
In addition to dietary recommendations for the general population, there are many specific diets that have primarily been developed to promote better health in specific population groups, such as people with high blood pressure (as in low sodium diets or the more specific DASH diet), or people who are overweight or obese (in weight control diets). However, some of them may have more or less evidence for beneficial effects in normal people as well.
Hypertension
A low sodium diet is beneficial for people with high blood pressure. A Cochrane review published in 2008 concluded that a long term (more than 4 weeks) low sodium diet has a useful effect to reduce blood pressure, both in people with hypertension and in people with normal blood pressure.
The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a diet promoted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the NIH, a United States government organization) to control hypertension. A major feature of the plan is limiting intake of sodium, and the diet also generally encourages the consumption of nuts, whole grains, fish, poultry, fruits, and vegetables while lowering the consumption of red meats, sweets, and sugar. It is also "rich in potassium, magnesium, and calcium, as well as protein".
The Mediterranean diet, which includes limiting consumption of red meat and using olive oil in cooking, has also been shown to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
Obesity
Weight control diets aim to maintain a controlled weight. In most cases, those who are overweight or obese use dieting in combination with physical exercise to lose weight.
Diets to promote weight loss are divided into four categories: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, low-calorie, and very low calorie. A meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials found no difference between the main diet types (low calorie, low carbohydrate, and low fat), with a 2-4 kilogram weight loss in all studies. At two years, all calorie-reduced diet types cause equal weight loss regardless of the macronutrients emphasized.
Gluten-related disorders
Gluten, a mixture of proteins found in wheat and related grains including barley, rye, oat, and all their species and hybrids (such as spelt, kamut, and triticale), causes health problems for those with gluten-related disorders, including celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis, and wheat allergy. In these people, the gluten-free diet is the only available treatment.
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Reduced disease risk
There may be a relationship between lifestyle including food consumption and potentially lowering the risk of cancer or other chronic diseases. A diet high in fruits and vegetables appears to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and death but not cancer.
A healthy diet may consist mostly of whole plant foods, with limited consumption of energy dense foods, red meat, alcoholic drinks and salt while reducing consumption of sugary drinks, and processed meat. A healthy diet may contain non-starchy vegetables and fruits, including those with red, green, yellow, white, purple or orange pigments. Tomato cooked with oil, allium vegetables like garlic, and cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower "probably" contain compounds which are under research for their possible anti-cancer activity.
A healthy diet is low in energy density, lowering caloric content, thereby possibly inhibiting weight gain and lowering risk against chronic diseases. Chronic Western diseases are associated with pathologically increased IGF-1 levels. Findings in molecular biology and epidemiologic data suggest that milk consumption is a promoter of chronic diseases of Western nations, including atherosclerosis, carcinogenesis and neurodegenerative diseases.
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Unhealthy diets
The Western pattern diet which is typically eaten by Americans and increasingly adapted by people in the developing world as they leave poverty is unhealthy: it is "rich in red meat, dairy products, processed and artificially sweetened foods, and salt, with minimal intake of fruits, vegetables, fish, legumes, and whole grains."
An unhealthy diet is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases including: high blood pressure, diabetes, abnormal blood lipids, overweight/obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.
The WHO estimates that 2.7 million deaths are attributable to a diet low in fruits and vegetables every year. Globally it is estimated to cause about 19% of gastrointestinal cancer, 31% of ischaemic heart disease, and 11% of strokes, thus making it one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.
Popular diets
Popular diets, often referred to as fad diets, make promises of weight loss or other health advantages such as longer life without backing by solid science, and in many cases are characterized by highly restrictive or unusual food choices. Celebrity endorsements (including celebrity doctors) are frequently associated with popular diets, and the individuals who develop and promote these programs often profit handsomely.
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Public health
Fears of high cholesterol were frequently voiced up until the mid-1990s. However, more recent research has shown that the distinction between high- and low-density lipoprotein ('good' and 'bad' cholesterol, respectively) must be addressed when speaking of the potential ill effects of cholesterol. Different types of dietary fat have different effects on blood levels of cholesterol. For example, polyunsaturated fats tend to decrease both types of cholesterol; monounsaturated fats tend to lower LDL and raise HDL; saturated fats tend to either raise HDL, or raise both HDL and LDL; and trans fat tend to raise LDL and lower HDL.
Dietary cholesterol is only found in animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy. The effect of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol levels is controversial. Some studies have found a link between cholesterol consumption and serum cholesterol levels. Other studies have not found a link between eating cholesterol and blood levels of cholesterol.
Vending machines in particular have come under fire as being avenues of entry into schools for junk food promoters. However, there is little in the way of regulation and it is difficult for most people to properly analyze the real merits of a company referring to itself as "healthy." Recently, the Committee of Advertising Practice in the United Kingdom launched a proposal to limit media advertising for food and soft drink products high in fat, salt or sugar. The British Heart Foundation released its own government-funded advertisements, labeled "Food4Thought", which were targeted at children and adults to discourage unhealthy habits of consuming junk food.
From a psychological and cultural perspective, a healthier diet may be difficult to achieve for people with poor eating habits. This may be due to tastes acquired in childhood and preferences for sugary, salty and/or fatty foods.
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Other animals
Animals that are kept by humans also benefit from a healthy diet and the requirements of such diets may be very different from the ideal human diet.
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See also
List of diets
Meals
Table of food nutrients
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References
src: www.nutrition.org.uk
External links
Diet, Nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases, by a Joint WHO/FAO Expert consultation (2003)
Mars is a British chocolate bar. It was first manufactured in 1932 in England and was advertised to the trade as being made with Cadbury's chocolate couverture. Mars is also sold in the United States, under the "Milky Way" name.
Video Mars (chocolate bar)
Worldwide version
In 1932, Forrest Mars, son of American candy maker Frank C. Mars, rented a factory in Slough and with a staff of twelve people, began manufacturing a chocolate bar consisting of nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate, modelled after his father's Milky Way bar, which was already popular in the US. The bar and the proportions of the main components have changed over the years. With minor variations, this version is sold worldwide, except for the US, and is packaged in a black wrapper with red gold-edged lettering.
In 2002, the Mars bar was reformulated and its logo was updated with a more cursive appearance. Its price also increased. The nougat was made lighter, the chocolate on top became thinner, and the overall weight of the bar was reduced slightly. The slogan "Pleasure you can't measure" was intended to appeal more to women and youths.
Various sizes are made (sizes as of 2008): miniature bars called "Fun Size" (19.7 g) and "Snack Time" (36.5 g) (both sold in multiple packs); a larger multi-pack size of 54 g; the regular sized single 58 g bar and a "king-size" 84 g bar which has since been replaced by "Mars Duo" (85 g) - a pack that contains 2 smaller bars of 42.5 g each instead of 1 large one. The regular 58 g single bar contains 260 calories.
In the second half of 2008, Mars UK reduced the weight of regular bars from 62.5 g to 58 g. Although the reduction in size was not publicised at the time, Mars claimed the change was designed to help tackle the obesity crisis in the UK. The company later confirmed that the real reason for the change was rising costs. In 2013, the "standard" Mars bar was further reduced to 51 g, bringing the change to around 20% in 5 year.
In the UK, most Mars bars are still made at the Slough Trading Estate.
United States
The worldwide Mars bar differs from that sold in the US. The American version was discontinued in 2002 and was replaced with the slightly different Snickers Almond featuring nougat, almonds, and a milk chocolate coating. Unlike the American Mars bar, however, Snickers Almond also contains caramel. The US version of the Mars bar was relaunched in January 2010 and was initially being sold on an exclusive basis through Walmart stores. The European version of the Mars bar is also sold in some United States grocery stores. The US version was once again discontinued at the end of 2011. In September 2017, Ethel M Chocolates, a gourmet chocolate subsidiary of Mars, Inc. launched the 'original American recipe' of the Mars Bar in their stores and on Amazon.com.
The international and Canadian Mars bars are very similar to the United States Milky Way bar, which Mars, Inc. also produces (not to be confused with the European version of Milky Way, which is similar to the United States' 3 Musketeers).
Australia
In May 2009 the Mars Bar size reduced from 60g to 53g, citing portion sizes and the obesity debate as the primary driver.
Within Australia there is debate regarding halal certification. Also within the Muslim community there is debate on the virtue of halal certification for products such as Mars bars.
Maps Mars (chocolate bar)
Limited editions
Several limited-edition variants of Mars bars have been released in various countries. (These have often been permanent releases in other countries.) They include:
Mars Almond
Mars Dark and Light
Mars Midnight, white inside Mars bar but covered in dark chocolate. Now named Mars Dark, it is on permanent release in Canada, and was on a Limited Edition sale in the UK, as of October 2009.
Mars Gold
Mars Maple (Canada)
Mars Mini Eggs (Available around Easter)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Mars bar
Mars Triple Chocolate (Australia) A variant in which, despite the name, includes chocolate-based nougat and chocolate-based caramel. Also available as limited edition in United Kingdom in August 2011, later re-released in 2015 as Mars Xtra Choc and in 2017 as "Mars Choc Brownie"
Mars Lite (Australia)
Mars Lava (Australia - Orange flavoured)
Mars Fling (Australia)
Mars Miniatures, 5 fun size bars in the same packet
Mars XXX (Australia) sold in gold wrapping. It contains chocolate flavoured caramel and nougat. Now called the Mars Triple Chocolate.
Mars Chill (Australia, New Zealand and UK) - wrapper had 'Mars' written in white, turned to blue when cold
Mars Rocks (Australia and New Zealand), released by Mars Snackfood Australia in August 2007, is made of chocolate-malt nougat topped with a layer of caramel and covered with milk chocolate embedded with "crispies" (whose main ingredients are wheat flour and sugar).
Mars Red (Australia) - Mars bar with half the fat of a regular Mars bar. Has a red wrapper with 'Mars' written in black.
Mars World Cup (England) - Mars bar with the St George's Cross on the packaging to commemorate England's participation in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Mars 100% Caramel - (Australia) - introduced in January 2011. It is simply a standard Mars Bar, but with the nougat removed. Also available in the UK as a limited edition as of 2012
Mars Vanilla - (Australia) - introduced April 2012. It is a standard Mars Bar with a vanilla flavoured nougat
Mars Honeycomb - (Australia) - introduced in January 2013. It is a standard Mars Bar but with the nougat being honeycomb-flavoured.
Mars Loaded - (Australia) - introduced January 2014. It is a Mars Bar with a chocolate flavoured nougat, chocolate flavoured caramel and a slightly darker chocolate coating
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Spinoff products
Other products have also been released using the Mars branding.
Mars Delight (discontinued in the UK as of 2008)
Mars Extra Chocolate Drink
Mars Active Energy Drink
Mars No Added Sugar Drink
Mars Ice Cream bars
Mars Midnight Ice Cream bars
McVities Mars Mini Rolls
Mars Bisc & (Australia and the UK - A biscuit with Mars topping)
Mars Pods (Australia and New Zealand - a small crunchy wafer shell with Mars filling, also available in variants)
Mars Rocks
Mars Planets
Mars Mix
Mars Frozen Dessert Bar
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Custom packaging
The Original Mars bar in "Believe" packaging was sold in the UK from 18 April 2006 until the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in July. "Believe" took prominence on the packaging ("Original Mars" appeared in smaller print) to indicate support for the England national football team. Advertising in other nations of the UK was tailored to reflect their own teams after the public condemnation, although in Scotland the "Believe" packaging was still used - causing negative publicity.
On 30 July 2008, the Tasmanian government announced that it had secured a major sponsor, Mars for a bid to enter the Australian Football League in a deal worth $4 million over 3 years and will temporarily change the name of its top-selling chocolate bar in Australia to Believe, to help promote Tasmania's cause.
Mars were re-branded "Hopp" (engl. "Go!") in Switzerland during UEFA Euro 2008. Like the "Believe" packaging sold in the UK in 2006, "Original Mars" was also shown in smaller print.
In 2010, to promote England's involvement in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the background of the UK Mars packaging became the St. George cross.
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Advertising slogans
Former
"Maxis from Mars" - United Kingdom (1969) A number of white Austin Maxis were driven around the country with numbers on the doors and if the number inside your Mars wrapper matched the Maxi you would see driving around your area you won that very car.
"Mars macht mobil bei Arbeit, Sport und Spiel" (Mars mobilises you at work, sports and play) - Germany (1980s and 1990s)
"A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" - Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand
"Out of this world!" - Australia, UK
"Earth - what you'd eat if you lived on Mars" - New Zealand
"Another way to make your day" - UK (2005)
"Feels good to be back! " - Australia (2005)
"An almond in every bite!" - US
"Un Mars, et ça repart" (A Mars, and you're off again) - France (late 1990s and renewed from 2006)
"Mars, que du bonheur" (Mars, only happiness) - France
"Mars, haal eruit wat erin zit!" (Mars, get the most out of it!) - The Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium
"Who knows? In 1,000 years we could all be sitting on Mars eating Earth bars." - United Kingdom (A full page advertisement placed in the official Guide Book for the Millennium Dome in 2000)
Current
"Mars your day" - Australia
"A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" - UK, Australia
"Recharge on Mars" - Canada
"Mars, pleasure you can't measure" - Europe
"Un coup de barre? Mars et ça repart!" (Feeling beat? A Mars and you're off again!) - France
"Nimm Mars, gib Gas" (Take Mars, step on the gas) - Germany
"Mars, momento di vero godimento" (Mars, a moment of pure enjoyment) - Italy
"Mars, geeft je energie" (Gives you energy) - The Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium
"Work-Rest-Play" - UK (later "Work-Rest-Play your part")
"Turn Up the Heat!" - (UK Promotional packs in 2010)
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Deep-fried Mars bar
This is a Mars bar which has been coated with batter and deep-fried in oil or beef fat. First reports of battered Mars bars being sold in Stonehaven, Scotland date back to 1995. The product is "not authorised or endorsed" by Mars, Inc.
Deep-fried Mars bars are available from some fish-and-chip shops in the UK (mainly in Scotland), Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the United States.
A similar dish has appeared in Kathmandu and Nepal, where momo (dumplings) have used Mars bars as fillings.
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Recalls
On July 2005, Mars bars, along with the Snickers bar, were recalled due to an anonymous extortion attempt against Star City Casino in Sydney. The extortionist claimed to have poisoned seven Mars and Snickers bars at random stores in New South Wales. As a result, Masterfoods Corporation, the company that manufactures Mars bars in Australia, recalled the entire Mars and Snickers product from store shelves in New South Wales. Nineteen people were possibly affected, with two being admitted to hospital. In the later half of August 2005, the threat to the public was deemed negligible and the bars returned to shelves.
In February 2016, Mars, Snickers and various other Mars, Inc. chocolate products were recalled in 55 countries in Europe, Middle East and Asia. The precautionary recall was issued after a customer found pieces of plastic in a Snickers bar purchased in Germany. The error was traced back to a Mars, Inc. factory in Veghel, The Netherlands.
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Animal products controversy
In May 2007 Mars UK announced that Mars bars, along with many of their other products such as Snickers, Maltesers, Minstrels and Twix would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because of the introduction of rennet, a chemical sourced from calves' stomachs used in the production of whey.
The rabbinical authorities declared that the products remained kosher for Jewish consumption.
The decision was condemned by several groups, with the Vegetarian Society stating that "at a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Mars' decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step".
Mars later abandoned these plans, stating that it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.
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Economics
It has been observed on several occasions that the price of a Mars bar correlates fairly accurately with the change in value of the pound sterling since World War II, much in the way that the Big Mac Index has proven to be a good indicator of the actual relative purchasing power of world currencies.
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References
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External links
The Visible Mars bar project, which shows the difference between US and UK Mars bars.
Site with cross-sections of both the original US and Canadian Mars bars
Slough History Online
Television commercial for original US Mars bar showing ingredients
Bulgur (from Turkish: bulgur; also burghul, from Arabic: ????? bourghoul, "groats") is a cereal food made from the parboiled groats of several different wheat species, most often from durum wheat. It originates in Middle Eastern cuisine.
Video Bulgur
Characteristics
Bulgur is recognized as a whole grain by the United States Department of Agriculture. Bulgur is sometimes confused with cracked wheat, which is crushed wheat grain that has not been parboiled. Instead, bulgur is cracked wheat that has been partially cooked. Bulgur is a common ingredient in cuisines of many countries of the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin. It has a light, nutty flavor.
A distinction is made between fine-ground bulgur and a coarser grind. It is defined by grind sizes (#1 Fine, #2 Medium, #3 Coarse and #4 Extra Coarse). The highest quality bulgur has particle sizes that are uniform, thus allowing a more consistent cooking time and result.
Cuisines
Coarse bulgur is used to make pottages, while the medium and fine grains are used for breakfast cereals, salads like k?s?r, pilavs, breads, and in dessert puddings like kheer. Bulgur porridge is similar to frumenty, a cracked wheat porridge that was a staple of medieval cuisine.
In breads, it adds a whole grain component. It is a main ingredient in tabbouleh salad and kibbeh. It is often a substitute for rice or couscous. In Indian and Pakistani cuisine, bulgur is used as a cereal often to make a porridge with milk and sugar or a savory porridge with vegetables and spices. In the United States, it is often used as a side dish, much like pasta or rice. In meals, bulgur is often mistaken for rice because it can be prepared in a similar manner, although it has a texture more like couscous than rice.
Armenians prepare bulgur as a pilaf in chicken stock, with or without sauteed noodles, or cooked with tomatoes, onions, herbs and red pepper. The fine grind is used for making eech, a bulgur salad similar to tabbouleh, prepared with tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, olive oil, and other salad ingredients to personal taste. Pomegranate molasses, which is more sour than sweet, is commonly used in favor of lemon juice to add tartness. A variety of mezes and main dishes are prepared.
In Cyprus, it is used to make "??????" (also known as bulgur köftesi in Cypriot Turkish), a variety of kibbeh. Its crust is usually made of bulgur wheat, flour, oil, salt and egg, then filled with ground meat (beef and/or pork), onions, parsley and spices. There is also vegetarian "??????" which substitutes the ground meat with chopped mushrooms.
The Saudi Arabian version of bulgur, popular in Nejd and Al-Hasa, is known as jarish.
Maps Bulgur
Nutrition facts
Cooked bulgur is composed of 78% water, 19% carbohydrates, and 3% protein. In a 100 gram reference amount, it provides 83 Calories.
Glossitis can mean soreness of the tongue, or more usually inflammation with depapillation of the dorsal surface of the tongue (loss of the lingual papillae), leaving a smooth and erythematous (reddened) surface, (sometimes specifically termed atrophic glossitis). In a wider sense, glossitis can mean inflammation of the tongue generally. Glossitis is often caused by nutritional deficiencies and may be painless or cause discomfort. Glossitis usually responds well to treatment if the cause is identified and corrected. Tongue soreness caused by glossitis is differentiated from burning mouth syndrome, where there is no identifiable change in the appearance of the tongue, and there are no identifiable causes.
Video Glossitis
Symptoms
Depending upon what exact meaning of the word glossitis is implied, signs and symptoms might include:
Smooth, shiny appearance of the tongue, caused by loss of lingual papillae.
Tongue color changes, usually to a darker red color than the normal white-pink color of a healthy tongue.
Tongue swelling.
Difficulty with chewing, swallowing, or speaking (either because of tongue soreness of tongue swelling).
Burning sensation. Some use the term secondary burning mouth syndrome in cases where a detectable cause, such as glossitis, for an oral burning sensation.
Depending upon the underlying cause, there may be additional signs and symptoms such as pallor, oral ulceration and angular cheilitis.
Maps Glossitis
Causes
Anemias
Iron-deficiency anemia is mainly caused by blood loss, such as may occur during menses or gastrointestinal hemorrhage. This often results in a depapilled, atrophic glossitis, giving the tongue a bald and shiny appearance, along with pallor (paleness) of the lips and other mucous membranes a tendency towards recurrent oral ulceration, and cheilosis (swelling of the lips). The appearance of the tongue in iron deficiency anemia has been described as diffuse or patchy atrophy with tenderness or burning. One cause of iron deficiency anemia is sideropenic dysphagia (Plummer-Vinson or Paterson-Brown-Kelly syndrome) which is also characterized by esophageal webbing and dysphagia.
Pernicious anemia is usually caused by autoimmune destruction of gastric parietal cells. Parietal cells secrete intrinsic factor which is required for the absorption of vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 deficiency results in megaloblastic anemia and may present as glossitis. The appearance of the tongue in vitamin B12 deficiency is described as "beefy" or "fiery red and sore". There may be linear or patchy red lesions.
Vitamin B deficiencies
Vitamin B1 deficiency (thiamin deficiency) can cause glossitis. Vitamin B2 deficiency (ariboflavinosis) can cause glossitis, along with angular cheilitis, cheilosis, peripheral neuropathy and other signs and symptoms. The glossitis in vitamin B2 deficiency is described as magenta. Vitamin B3 deficiency (pellagra) can cause glossitis. Vitamin B6 deficiency (pyridoxine deficiency) can cause glossitis, along with angular cheilitis, cheilosis, peripheral neuropathy and seborrheic dermatitis. Folate deficiency (vitamin B9 deficiency) can cause glossitis, along with macrocytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia, diarrhea, fatigue and possibly neurological signs. Apart from pernicious anemia discussed above, any other cause of vitamin B12 deficiency can cause glossitis, which tends to be painful, smooth and shiny.
Infections
Bacterial, viral or fungal infections can cause glossitis. Candida species are involved in median rhomboid glossitis. Candida species also may be involved in creating a more generalized glossitis with erythema, burning, and atrophy,
e.g. erythematous candidiasis (e.g. as may occur in HIV/AIDS) may involve the tongue giving glossitis with depapillation.
Syphilis is now relatively rare, but the tertiary stage can cause diffuse glossitis and atrophy of lingual papillae, termed "syphilitic glossitis", "luetic glossitis" or "atrophic glossitis of tertiary syphilis". It is caused by Treponema pallidum and is a sexually transmitted infection.
Other causes
Many conditions can cause glossitis via malnutrition or malabsorption, which creates the nutritional deficiencies described above, although other mechanisms may be involved in some of those conditions listed.
Alcoholism
Sprue (celiac disease, or tropical sprue), secondary to nutritional deficiencies
Crohn's disease
Whipple disease
Glucagonoma syndrome
Cowden disease
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
Carcinoid syndrome
Kwashiorkor amyloidosis
Veganism and other specialized diets,
Poor hydration and low saliva in the mouth, which allows bacteria to grow more readily
Mechanical irritation or injury from burns, rough edges of teeth or dental appliances, or other trauma
Tongue piercing Glossitis can be caused by the constant irritation by the ornament and by colonization of Candida albicans in site and on the ornament
Exposure to irritants such as tobacco, alcohol, hot foods, or spices
Allergic reaction to toothpaste, mouthwash, breath fresheners, dyes in confectionery, plastic in dentures or retainers, or certain blood-pressure medications (ACE inhibitors)
Administration of ganglion blockers (e.g., Tubocurarine, Mecamylamine).
A painful tongue may be an indication of an underlying serious medical condition and nearly always merits assessment by a physician or dental surgeon.
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Diagnosis
Classification
Glossitis could be classified as a group of tongue diseases or gastrointestinal diseases. It may be primary, where there is no underlying cause, or secondary where it is a sign or symptom of another condition. It can be acute or chronic. Generally speaking, there are several clinical patterns of glossitis, some more common than others.
Atrophic glossitis
Atrophic glossitis, also known as bald tongue, smooth tongue, Hunter glossitis, Moeller glossitis, or Möller-Hunter glossitis, is a condition characterized by a smooth glossy tongue that is often tender/painful, caused by complete atrophy of the lingual papillae (depapillation). The dorsal tongue surface may be affected totally, or in patches, and may be associated with a burning sensation, pain and/or erythema. Atrophic glossitis is a non-specific finding, and has a great many causes, usually related to iron-deficiency anemia, pernicious anemia, B vitamin complex deficiencies, unrecognized and untreated celiac disease (which often presents without gastrointestinal symptoms), or other factors such as xerostomia (dry mouth). Although the terms Möller and Hunter glossitis were originally used to refer to specifically the glossitis that occurs in vitamin B12 deficiency secondary to pernicious anemia, they are now used as synonyms for atrophic glossitis generally. In this article, the term glossitis, unless otherwise specified, refers to atrophic glossitis.
Candidiasis may be a concurrent finding or an alternative cause of erythema, burning, and atrophy.
Median rhomboid glossitis
This condition is characterized by a persistent erythematous, rhomboidal depapillated lesion in the central area of the dorsum of the tongue, just in front of the circumvallate papillae. Median rhomboid glossitis is a type of oral candidiasis, and rarely causes any symptoms. It is treated with antifungal medication. Predisposing factors include use of corticosteroid sprays or inhalers or immunosuppression.
Benign migratory glossitis
Geographic tongue, also termed benign migratory glossitis, is a common condition which usually affects the dorsal surface of the tongue. It is characterized by patches of depapillation and erythema bordered by a whitish peripheral zone. These patches give the tongue the appearance of a map, hence the name. Unlike glossitis due to nutritional deficiencies and anemia, the lesions of geographic tongue move around the tongue over time. This is because in geographic tongue, new areas of the tongue become involved with the condition whilst previously affected areas heal, giving the appearance of a moving lesion. The cause is unknown, and there is no curative treatment. Rarely are there any symptoms associated with the lesions, but occasionally a burning sensation may be present, which is exacerbated by eating hot, spicy or acidic foodstuffs. Some consider geographic tongue to be an early stage of fissured tongue, since the two conditions often occur in combination.
Geometric glossitis
Geometric glossitis, also termed herpetic geometric glossitis, is a term used by some to refer to a chronic lesion associated with herpes simplex virus (HSV) type I infection, in which there is a deep fissure in the midline of the tongue, which gives off multiple branches. The lesion is usually very painful, and there may be erosions present in the depths of the fissures. Similar fissured lesions which are not associated with HSV, as may occur in fissured tongue, do not tend to be painful. The name comes from the geometric pattern of the fissures which are longitudinal, crossed or branched. It is described as occurring in immunocompromized persons, e.g. who have leukemia. However, the association between herpes simplex and geometric glossitis is disputed by some due to a lack of gold standard techniques for diagnosis of intraoral herpetic lesions, and the high prevalence of asymptomatic viral shedding in immunocompromized individuals. Treatment is with systemic aciclovir.
Strawberry tongue
Strawberry tongue (also called raspberry tongue), refers to glossitis which manifests with hyperplastic (enlarged) fungiform papillae, giving the appearance of a strawberry. White strawberry tongue is where there is a white coating on the tongue through which the hyperplastic fungiform papillae protrude. Red strawberry tongue is where the white coating is lost and a dark red, erythematous surface is revealed, interspaced with the hyperplastic fungiform papillae. White strawberry tongue is seen in early scarlet fever (a systemic infection of group A ?- hemolytic streptococci), and red strawberry tongue occurs later, after 4-5 days. Strawberry tongue is also seen in Kawasaki disease (a vasculitic disorder primarily occurring in children under 5), and toxic shock syndrome. It may mimic other types of glossitis or Vitamin B12 deficiency.
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Prevention
Good oral hygiene (thorough tooth brushing and flossing and regular professional cleaning and examination) may be helpful to prevent these disorders. Drinking plenty of water and the production of enough saliva, aid in the reduction of bacterial growth. Minimizing irritants or injury in the mouth when possible can aid in the prevention of glossitis. Avoiding excessive use of any food or substance that irritates the mouth or tongue may also help.
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Treatment
The goal of treatment is to reduce inflammation. Treatment usually does not require hospitalization unless tongue swelling is severe. Good oral hygiene is necessary, including thorough tooth brushing at least twice a day, and flossing at least daily. Corticosteroids such as prednisone may be given to reduce the inflammation of glossitis. For mild cases, topical applications (such as a prednisone mouth rinse that is not swallowed) may be recommended to avoid the side effects of swallowed or injected corticosteroids. Antibiotics, antifungal medications, or other antimicrobials may be prescribed if the cause of glossitis is an infection. Anemia and nutritional deficiencies (such as a deficiency in niacin, riboflavin, iron, or Vitamin E) must be treated, often by dietary changes or other supplements. Avoid irritants (such as hot or spicy foods, alcohol, and tobacco) to minimize the discomfort. In some cases, tongue swelling may threaten the airway, a medical emergency that needs immediate attention.
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Epidemiology
One review reported overall prevalence ranges of 0.1-14.3% for geographic tongue, 1.3-9.0% for "atrophy tongue" (atrophic glossitis), and 0.0-3.35% for median rhomboid glossitis.
The Unicorn Frappuccino was a drink created by Starbucks, introduced in April 2017. It is made with ice, milk, pink powder, sour blue powder, crème Frappuccino syrup, mango syrup, and blue drizzle. In the 24-oz. size, it contains 500 calories, 18 grams of fat, 76 grams of sugar, and 55 milligrams of cholesterol. The drink was available only for a limited time, ending on April 23, 2017.
The Unicorn Frappuccino was criticized by the Stratford Health Department for having too much sugar. This was due to the fact that the American Heart Association recommends that women consume 0.88 ounces (25 g) of sugar every day, and that men consume 1.3 ounces (36 g) of sugar every day.
Some saw the "vibrantly hued, flavor-shifting, color-changing" drink as part of a larger, social media-fueled embrace of the unicorn in 2017.
Video Unicorn Frappuccino
Dragon Frappuccino
Most stores sold out of the Unicorn Frappuccino before April 23, 2017, leading to the creation of the unofficial Dragon Frappuccino.
The Dragon Frappuccino was colored green and purple or pink. The recipe can vary, but it is generally regarded as being a Green Tea Frappuccino with vanilla bean powder, which forms the green color, and berry cup swirl, which forms the purple or pink color. Occasionally, the vanilla bean powder is excluded. The drink additionally can have mango sprinkles on top. Although this drink is supposed to be a replacement for the limited Unicorn Frappuccino, the berry cup swirl is hard to find, as it is an ingredient left over from the Unicorn Frappuccino. It was also praised for its inclusion of caffeine.
Ensure is the brand name of nutritional supplements and meal replacements manufactured by Abbott Laboratories.
A 237-ml (8-fl oz) bottle of Ensure Original contains 220 calories, six grams of fat, 15 grams of sugar, and nine grams of protein. The top six ingredients are water, corn maltodextrin, sugar, milk protein concentrate, canola oil, and soy protein isolate.
Video Ensure
History
In 1903, Harry C. Moores and Stanley M. Ross launched the "Moores & Ross Milk Company", which specialized in bottling milk for home delivery for the first few years. By 1964, however, the company merged with Abbott Laboratories. A drink called Ensure was first marketed by Ross Laboratories in 1973.
In the 1990s, Ensure and other nutritional drink products like Mead Johnson's Sustacal and Nestlé's Boost and Resource brands were fiercely competing to capture market share among healthy adults. In 1996, Ensure had sales of about $300 million and accounted for 80% of protein supplement sales; Abbott spent $45.4 million to advertise Ensure during the first nine months of 1996, around 70% more than it spent during the same period of 1995.
In 1995, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that ads for Ensure were "the most misleading food ad" of that year. In 1997, Abbott settled charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it was falsely marketing Ensure as having a similar amount of vitamins as multivitamin supplements, as being recommended by doctors more than any other nutritional supplement, and as being recommended by doctors as a way to stay healthy and active for people who were otherwise healthy.
Maps Ensure
Products
When Abbott split off its pharmaceuticals division, Abbvie, in 2013, the Ensure product line remained with Abbott with the other nutritional products.
As of 2016, variants of Ensure included:
Ensure Original
Ensure Original Pudding
Ensure Plus
Ensure Enlive
Ensure High Protein
Ensure Clear
Ensure Light
Ensure Compact
Ensure Original Nutrition Powder
Ensure Muscle Health
As of 2016, Ensure Complete had been discontinued.
Ensure has been used in the force feeding of hunger-striking prisoners at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps.
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
Historically, humans secured food through two methods: hunting and gathering and agriculture. Today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry.
Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like the International Association for Food Protection, World Resources Institute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Food Information Council. They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food.
The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger".
Video Food
Food sources
Most food has its origin in plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants; but even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Cereal grain is a staple food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop. Corn (maize), wheat, and rice - in all of their varieties - account for 87% of all grain production worldwide. Most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock.
Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, especially mushrooms. Fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt. Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina. Inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient.
Plants
Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food. Many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars.
Seeds of plants are a good source of food for animals, including humans, because they contain the nutrients necessary for the plant's initial growth, including many healthful fats, such as omega fats. In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods. Edible seeds include cereals (corn, wheat, rice, et cetera), legumes (beans, peas, lentils, et cetera), and nuts. Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils - sunflower, flaxseed, rapeseed (including canola oil), sesame, et cetera.
Seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food. However, not all seeds are edible. Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard, while seeds from cherries and apples contain cyanide which could be poisonous only if consumed in large volumes.
Fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within. Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are an attractive food source to the latter, because animals that eat the fruits may excrete the seeds some distance away. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures. Some botanical fruits, such as tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants, are eaten as vegetables. (For more information, see list of fruits.)
Vegetables are a second type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food. These include root vegetables (potatoes and carrots), bulbs (onion family), leaf vegetables (spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables (globe artichokes and broccoli and other vegetables such as cabbage or cauliflower).
Animals
Animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce. Meat is an example of a direct product taken from an animal, which comes from muscle systems or from organs.
Food products produced by animals include milk produced by mammary glands, which in many cultures is drunk or processed into dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.). In addition, birds and other animals lay eggs, which are often eaten, and bees produce honey, a reduced nectar from flowers, which is a popular sweetener in many cultures. Some cultures consume blood, sometimes in the form of blood sausage, as a thickener for sauces, or in a cured, salted form for times of food scarcity, and others use blood in stews such as jugged hare.
Some cultures and people do not consume meat or animal food products for cultural, dietary, health, ethical, or ideological reasons. Vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Vegans do not consume any foods that are or contain ingredients from an animal source.
Maps Food
Production
Most food has always been obtained through agriculture. With increasing concern over both the methods and products of modern industrial agriculture, there has been a growing trend toward sustainable agricultural practices. This approach, partly fueled by consumer demand, encourages biodiversity, local self-reliance and organic farming methods. Major influences on food production include international organizations (e.g. the World Trade Organization and Common Agricultural Policy), national government policy (or law), and war.
In popular culture, the mass production of food, specifically meats such as chicken and beef, has come under fire from various documentaries, most recently Food, Inc, documenting the mass slaughter and poor treatment of animals, often for easier revenues from large corporations. Along with a current trend towards environmentalism, people in Western culture have had an increasing trend towards the use of herbal supplements, foods for a specific group of people (such as dieters, women, or athletes), functional foods (fortified foods, such as omega-3 eggs), and a more ethnically diverse diet.
Several organisations have begun calling for a new kind of agriculture in which agroecosystems provide food but also support vital ecosystem services so that soil fertility and biodiversity are maintained rather than compromised. According to the International Water Management Institute and UNEP, well-managed agroecosystems not only provide food, fiber and animal products, they also provide services such as flood mitigation, groundwater recharge, erosion control and habitats for plants, birds, fish and other animals.
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Taste perception
Animals, specifically humans, have five different types of tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. As animals have evolved, the tastes that provide the most energy (sugar and fats) are the most pleasant to eat while others, such as bitter, are not enjoyable. Water, while important for survival, has no taste. Fats, on the other hand, especially saturated fats, are thicker and rich and are thus considered more enjoyable to eat.
Sweet
Generally regarded as the most pleasant taste, sweetness is almost always caused by a type of simple sugar such as glucose or fructose, or disaccharides such as sucrose, a molecule combining glucose and fructose. Complex carbohydrates are long chains and thus do not have the sweet taste. Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose are used to mimic the sugar molecule, creating the sensation of sweet, without the calories. Other types of sugar include raw sugar, which is known for its amber color, as it is unprocessed. As sugar is vital for energy and survival, the taste of sugar is pleasant.
The stevia plant contains a compound known as steviol which, when extracted, has 300 times the sweetness of sugar while having minimal impact on blood sugar.
Sour
Sourness is caused by the taste of acids, such as vinegar in alcoholic beverages. Sour foods include citrus, specifically lemons, limes, and to a lesser degree oranges. Sour is evolutionarily significant as it is a sign for a food that may have gone rancid due to bacteria. Many foods, however, are slightly acidic, and help stimulate the taste buds and enhance flavor.
Salty
Saltiness is the taste of alkali metal ions such as sodium and potassium. It is found in almost every food in low to moderate proportions to enhance flavor, although to eat pure salt is regarded as highly unpleasant. There are many different types of salt, with each having a different degree of saltiness, including sea salt, fleur de sel, kosher salt, mined salt, and grey salt. Other than enhancing flavor, its significance is that the body needs and maintains a delicate electrolyte balance, which is the kidney's function. Salt may be iodized, meaning iodine has been added to it, a necessary nutrient that promotes thyroid function. Some canned foods, notably soups or packaged broths, tend to be high in salt as a means of preserving the food longer. Historically salt has long been used as a meat preservative as salt promotes water excretion. Similarly, dried foods also promote food safety.
Bitter
Bitterness is a sensation often considered unpleasant characterized by having a sharp, pungent taste. Unsweetened dark chocolate, caffeine, lemon rind, and some types of fruit are known to be bitter.
Umami
Umami, the Japanese word for delicious, is the least known in Western popular culture but has a long tradition in Asian cuisine. Umami is the taste of glutamates, especially monosodium glutamate (MSG). It is characterized as savory, meaty, and rich in flavor. Salmon and mushrooms are foods high in umami.
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Cuisine
Many scholars claim that the rhetorical function of food is to represent the culture of a country, and that it can be used as a form of communication. According to Goode, Curtis and Theophano, food "is the last aspect of an ethnic culture to be lost".
Many cultures have a recognizable cuisine, a specific set of cooking traditions using various spices or a combination of flavors unique to that culture, which evolves over time. Other differences include preferences (hot or cold, spicy, etc.) and practices, the study of which is known as gastronomy. Many cultures have diversified their foods by means of preparation, cooking methods, and manufacturing. This also includes a complex food trade which helps the cultures to economically survive by way of food, not just by consumption.
Some popular types of ethnic foods include Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, American, Cajun, Thai, African, Indian and Nepalese. Various cultures throughout the world study the dietary analysis of food habits. While evolutionarily speaking, as opposed to culturally, humans are omnivores, religion and social constructs such as morality, activism, or environmentalism will often affect which foods they will consume. Food is eaten and typically enjoyed through the sense of taste, the perception of flavor from eating and drinking. Certain tastes are more enjoyable than others, for evolutionary purposes.
Presentation
Aesthetically pleasing and eye-appealing food presentations can encourage people to consume foods. A common saying is that people "eat with their eyes". Food presented in a clean and appetizing way will encourage a good flavor, even if unsatisfactory.
Contrast in texture
Texture plays a crucial role in the enjoyment of eating foods. Contrasts in textures, such as something crunchy in an otherwise smooth dish, may increase the appeal of eating it. Common examples include adding granola to yogurt, adding croutons to a salad or soup, and toasting bread to enhance its crunchiness for a smooth topping, such as jam or butter.
Contrast in taste
Another universal phenomenon regarding food is the appeal of contrast in taste and presentation. For example, such opposite flavors as sweetness and saltiness tend to go well together, as in kettle corn and nuts.
Food preparation
While many foods can be eaten raw, many also undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, texture, or flavor. At the simplest level this may involve washing, cutting, trimming, or adding other foods or ingredients, such as spices. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling, pressure cooking, fermentation, or combination with other food. In a home, most food preparation takes place in a kitchen. Some preparation is done to enhance the taste or aesthetic appeal; other preparation may help to preserve the food; others may be involved in cultural identity. A meal is made up of food which is prepared to be eaten at a specific time and place.
Animal preparation
The preparation of animal-based food usually involves slaughter, evisceration, hanging, portioning, and rendering. In developed countries, this is usually done outside the home in slaughterhouses, which are used to process animals en masse for meat production. Many countries regulate their slaughterhouses by law. For example, the United States has established the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, which requires that an animal be stunned before killing. This act, like those in many countries, exempts slaughter in accordance to religious law, such as kosher, shechita, and dhab??ah halal. Strict interpretations of kashrut require the animal to be fully aware when its carotid artery is cut.
On the local level, a butcher may commonly break down larger animal meat into smaller manageable cuts, and pre-wrap them for commercial sale or wrap them to order in butcher paper. In addition, fish and seafood may be fabricated into smaller cuts by a fish monger. However, fish butchery may be done on board a fishing vessel and quick-frozen for preservation of quality.
Cooking
The term "cooking" encompasses a vast range of methods, tools, and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavor or digestibility of food. Cooking technique, known as culinary art, generally requires the selection, measurement, and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual cook. The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, and religious considerations that affect it.
Cooking requires applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically changes the molecules, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance, and nutritional properties. Cooking certain proteins, such as egg whites, meats, and fish, denatures the protein, causing it to firm. There is archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs at Homo erectus campsites dating from 420,000 years ago. Boiling as a means of cooking requires a container, and has been practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC with the introduction of pottery.
Cooking equipment
There are many different types of equipment used for cooking.
Ovens are mostly hollow devices that get very hot (up to 500 °F (260 °C)) and are used for baking or roasting and offer a dry-heat cooking method. Different cuisines will use different types of ovens. For example, Indian culture uses a tandoor oven, which is a cylindrical clay oven which operates at a single high temperature. Western kitchens use variable temperature convection ovens, conventional ovens, toaster ovens, or non-radiant heat ovens like the microwave oven. Classic Italian cuisine includes the use of a brick oven containing burning wood. Ovens may be wood-fired, coal-fired, gas, electric, or oil-fired.
Various types of cook-tops are used as well. They carry the same variations of fuel types as the ovens mentioned above. Cook-tops are used to heat vessels placed on top of the heat source, such as a sauté pan, sauce pot, frying pan, or pressure cooker. These pieces of equipment can use either a moist or dry cooking method and include methods such as steaming, simmering, boiling, and poaching for moist methods, while the dry methods include sautéing, pan frying, and deep-frying.
In addition, many cultures use grills for cooking. A grill operates with a radiant heat source from below, usually covered with a metal grid and sometimes a cover. An open pit barbecue in the American south is one example along with the American style outdoor grill fueled by wood, liquid propane, or charcoal along with soaked wood chips for smoking. A Mexican style of barbecue is called barbacoa, which involves the cooking of meats such as whole sheep over an open fire. In Argentina, an asado (Spanish for "grilled") is prepared on a grill held over an open pit or fire made upon the ground, on which a whole animal or smaller cuts are grilled.
Raw food preparation
Certain cultures highlight animal and vegetable foods in a raw state. Salads consisting of raw vegetables or fruits are common in many cuisines. Sashimi in Japanese cuisine consists of raw sliced fish or other meat, and sushi often incorporates raw fish or seafood. Steak tartare and salmon tartare are dishes made from diced or ground raw beef or salmon, mixed with various ingredients and served with baguettes, brioche, or frites. In Italy, carpaccio is a dish of very thinly sliced raw beef, drizzled with a vinaigrette made with olive oil. The health food movement known as raw foodism promotes a mostly vegan diet of raw fruits, vegetables, and grains prepared in various ways, including juicing, food dehydration, sprouting, and other methods of preparation that do not heat the food above 118 °F (47.8 °C). An example of a raw meat dish is ceviche, a Latin American dish made with raw meat that is "cooked" from the highly acidic citric juice from lemons and limes along with other aromatics such as garlic.
Restaurants
Restaurants employ chefs to prepare the food, and waiters to serve customers at the table. The term restaurant comes from an old term for a restorative meat broth; this broth (or bouillon) was served in elegant outlets in Paris from the mid 18th century. These refined "restaurants" were a marked change from the usual basic eateries such as inns and taverns, and some had developed from early Parisian cafés, such as Café Procope, by first serving bouillon, then adding other cooked food to their menus.
Commercial eateries existed during the Roman period, with evidence of 150 "thermopolia", a form of fast food restaurant, found in Pompeii, and urban sales of prepared foods may have existed in China during the Song dynasty.
In 2005, the population of the United States spent $496 billion on out-of-home dining. Expenditures by type of out-of-home dining were as follows: 40% in full-service restaurants, 37.2% in limited service restaurants (fast food), 6.6% in schools or colleges, 5.4% in bars and vending machines, 4.7% in hotels and motels, 4.0% in recreational places, and 2.2% in others, which includes military bases.
Food manufacturing
Packaged foods are manufactured outside the home for purchase. This can be as simple as a butcher preparing meat, or as complex as a modern international food industry. Early food processing techniques were limited by available food preservation, packaging, and transportation. This mainly involved salting, curing, curdling, drying, pickling, fermenting, and smoking. Food manufacturing arose during the industrial revolution in the 19th century. This development took advantage of new mass markets and emerging technology, such as milling, preservation, packaging and labeling, and transportation. It brought the advantages of pre-prepared time-saving food to the bulk of ordinary people who did not employ domestic servants.
At the start of the 21st century, a two-tier structure has arisen, with a few international food processing giants controlling a wide range of well-known food brands. There also exists a wide array of small local or national food processing companies. Advanced technologies have also come to change food manufacture. Computer-based control systems, sophisticated processing and packaging methods, and logistics and distribution advances can enhance product quality, improve food safety, and reduce costs.
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Commercial trade
International food imports and exports
The World Bank reported that the European Union was the top food importer in 2005, followed at a distance by the USA and Japan. Britain's need for food was especially well illustrated in World War II. Despite the implementation of food rationing, Britain remained dependent on food imports and the result was a long term engagement in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Food is traded and marketed on a global basis. The variety and availability of food is no longer restricted by the diversity of locally grown food or the limitations of the local growing season. Between 1961 and 1999, there was a 400% increase in worldwide food exports. Some countries are now economically dependent on food exports, which in some cases account for over 80% of all exports.
In 1994, over 100 countries became signatories to the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in a dramatic increase in trade liberalization. This included an agreement to reduce subsidies paid to farmers, underpinned by the WTO enforcement of agricultural subsidy, tariffs, import quotas, and settlement of trade disputes that cannot be bilaterally resolved. Where trade barriers are raised on the disputed grounds of public health and safety, the WTO refer the dispute to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was founded in 1962 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. Trade liberalization has greatly affected world food trade.
Marketing and retailing
Food marketing brings together the producer and the consumer. The marketing of even a single food product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. For example, fifty-six companies are involved in making one can of chicken noodle soup. These businesses include not only chicken and vegetable processors but also the companies that transport the ingredients and those who print labels and manufacture cans. The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect non-government employer in the United States.
In the pre-modern era, the sale of surplus food took place once a week when farmers took their wares on market day into the local village marketplace. Here food was sold to grocers for sale in their local shops for purchase by local consumers. With the onset of industrialization and the development of the food processing industry, a wider range of food could be sold and distributed in distant locations. Typically early grocery shops would be counter-based shops, in which purchasers told the shop-keeper what they wanted, so that the shop-keeper could get it for them.
In the 20th century, supermarkets were born. Supermarkets brought with them a self service approach to shopping using shopping carts, and were able to offer quality food at lower cost through economies of scale and reduced staffing costs. In the latter part of the 20th century, this has been further revolutionized by the development of vast warehouse-sized, out-of-town supermarkets, selling a wide range of food from around the world.
Unlike food processors, food retailing is a two-tier market in which a small number of very large companies control a large proportion of supermarkets. The supermarket giants wield great purchasing power over farmers and processors, and strong influence over consumers. Nevertheless, less than 10% of consumer spending on food goes to farmers, with larger percentages going to advertising, transportation, and intermediate corporations.
Prices
It is rare for price spikes to hit all major foods in most countries at once, but food prices suffered all-time peaks in 2008 and 2011, posting a 15% and 12% deflated increase year-over-year, representing prices higher than any data collected.
In December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. In China, the price of pork jumped 58% in 2007. In the 1980s and 1990s, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. However, new trade policies had made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands, putting global food reserves at their lowest since 1983.
Rising food prices in those years have been linked with social unrest around the world, including rioting in Bangladesh and Mexico, and the Arab Spring. Food prices worldwide increased in 2008. One cause of rising food prices is wealthier Asian consumers are westernizing their diets, and farmers and nations of the third world are struggling to keep up the pace. The past five years have seen rapid growth in the contribution of Asian nations to the global fluid and powdered milk manufacturing industry, which in 2008 accounted for more than 30% of production, while China alone accounts for more than 10% of both production and consumption in the global fruit and vegetable processing and preserving industry.
In 2013 Overseas Development Institute researchers showed that rice has more than doubled in price since 2000, rising by 120% in real terms. This was as a result of shifts in trade policy and restocking by major producers. More fundamental drivers of increased prices are the higher costs of fertiliser, diesel and labour. Parts of Asia see rural wages rise with potential large benefits for the 1.3 billion (2008 estimate) of Asia's poor in reducing the poverty they face. However, this negatively impacts more vulnerable groups who don't share in the economic boom, especially in Asian and African coastal cities. The researchers said the threat means social-protection policies are needed to guard against price shocks. The research proposed that in the longer run, the rises present opportunities to export for Western African farmers with high potential for rice production to replace imports with domestic production.
Most recently, global food prices have been more stable and relatively low, after a sizable increase in late 2017, they are back under 75% of the nominal value seen during the all-time high in the 2011 food crisis.
As investment
Institutions such as hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks like Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been instrumental in pushing up prices in the last five years, with investment in food commodities rising from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) between 2007 and 2012, contributing to 30-year highs. This has caused price fluctuations which are not strongly related to the actual supply of food, according to the United Nations. Financial institutions now make up 61% of all investment in wheat futures. According to Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on food, there was a rush by institutions to enter the food market following George W Bush's Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000. De Schutter told the Independent in March 2012: "What we are seeing now is that these financial markets have developed massively with the arrival of these new financial investors, who are purely interested in the short-term monetary gain and are not really interested in the physical thing - they never actually buy the ton of wheat or maize; they only buy a promise to buy or to sell. The result of this financialisation of the commodities market is that the prices of the products respond increasingly to a purely speculative logic. This explains why in very short periods of time we see prices spiking or bubbles exploding, because prices are less and less determined by the real match between supply and demand." In 2011, 450 economists from around the world called on the G20 to regulate the commodities market more.
Some experts have said that speculation has merely aggravated other factors, such as climate change, competition with bio-fuels and overall rising demand. However, some such as Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, have pointed out that prices have increased irrespective of supply and demand issues: Ghosh points to world wheat prices, which doubled in the period from June to December 2010, despite there being no fall in global supply.
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Famine and hunger
Food deprivation leads to malnutrition and ultimately starvation. This is often connected with famine, which involves the absence of food in entire communities. This can have a devastating and widespread effect on human health and mortality. Rationing is sometimes used to distribute food in times of shortage, most notably during times of war.
Starvation is a significant international problem. Approximately 815 million people are undernourished, and over 16,000 children die per day from hunger-related causes. Food deprivation is regarded as a deficit need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and is measured using famine scales.
Food aid
Food aid can benefit people suffering from a shortage of food. It can be used to improve peoples' lives in the short term, so that a society can increase its standard of living to the point that food aid is no longer required. Conversely, badly managed food aid can create problems by disrupting local markets, depressing crop prices, and discouraging food production. Sometimes a cycle of food aid dependence can develop. Its provision, or threatened withdrawal, is sometimes used as a political tool to influence the policies of the destination country, a strategy known as food politics. Sometimes, food aid provisions will require certain types of food be purchased from certain sellers, and food aid can be misused to enhance the markets of donor countries. International efforts to distribute food to the neediest countries are often coordinated by the World Food Programme.
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Safety
Foodborne illness, commonly called "food poisoning", is caused by bacteria, toxins, viruses, parasites, and prions. Roughly 7 million people die of food poisoning each year, with about 10 times as many suffering from a non-fatal version. The two most common factors leading to cases of bacterial foodborne illness are cross-contamination of ready-to-eat food from other uncooked foods and improper temperature control. Less commonly, acute adverse reactions can also occur if chemical contamination of food occurs, for example from improper storage, or use of non-food grade soaps and disinfectants. Food can also be adulterated by a very wide range of articles (known as "foreign bodies") during farming, manufacture, cooking, packaging, distribution, or sale. These foreign bodies can include pests or their droppings, hairs, cigarette butts, wood chips, and all manner of other contaminants. It is possible for certain types of food to become contaminated if stored or presented in an unsafe container, such as a ceramic pot with lead-based glaze.
Food poisoning has been recognized as a disease since as early as Hippocrates. The sale of rancid, contaminated, or adulterated food was commonplace until the introduction of hygiene, refrigeration, and vermin controls in the 19th century. Discovery of techniques for killing bacteria using heat, and other microbiological studies by scientists such as Louis Pasteur, contributed to the modern sanitation standards that are ubiquitous in developed nations today. This was further underpinned by the work of Justus von Liebig, which led to the development of modern food storage and food preservation methods. In more recent years, a greater understanding of the causes of food-borne illnesses has led to the development of more systematic approaches such as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), which can identify and eliminate many risks.
Recommended measures for ensuring food safety include maintaining a clean preparation area with foods of different types kept separate, ensuring an adequate cooking temperature, and refrigerating foods promptly after cooking.
Foods that spoil easily, such as meats, dairy, and seafood, must be prepared a certain way to avoid contaminating the people for whom they are prepared. As such, the rule of thumb is that cold foods (such as dairy products) should be kept cold and hot foods (such as soup) should be kept hot until storage. Cold meats, such as chicken, that are to be cooked should not be placed at room temperature for thawing, at the risk of dangerous bacterial growth, such as Salmonella or E. coli.
Allergies
Some people have allergies or sensitivities to foods which are not problematic to most people. This occurs when a person's immune system mistakes a certain food protein for a harmful foreign agent and attacks it. About 2% of adults and 8% of children have a food allergy. The amount of the food substance required to provoke a reaction in a particularly susceptible individual can be quite small. In some instances, traces of food in the air, too minute to be perceived through smell, have been known to provoke lethal reactions in extremely sensitive individuals. Common food allergens are gluten, corn, shellfish (mollusks), peanuts, and soy. Allergens frequently produce symptoms such as diarrhea, rashes, bloating, vomiting, and regurgitation. The digestive complaints usually develop within half an hour of ingesting the allergen.
Rarely, food allergies can lead to a medical emergency, such as anaphylactic shock, hypotension (low blood pressure), and loss of consciousness. An allergen associated with this type of reaction is peanut, although latex products can induce similar reactions. Initial treatment is with epinephrine (adrenaline), often carried by known patients in the form of an Epi-pen or Twinject.
Other health issues
Human diet was estimated to cause perhaps around 35% of cancers in a human epidemiological analysis by Richard Doll and Richard Peto in 1981. These cancer may be caused by carcinogens that are present in food naturally or as contaminants. Food contaminated with fungal growth may contain mycotoxins such as aflatoxins which may be found in contaminated corn and peanuts. Other carcinogens identified in food include heterocyclic amines generated in meat when cooked at high temperature, polyaromatic hydrocarbons in charred meat and smoked fish, and nitrosamines generated from nitrites used as food preservatives in cured meat such as bacon.
Anticarcinogens that may help prevent cancer can also be found in many food especially fruit and vegetables. Antioxidants are important groups of compounds that may help remove potentially harmful chemicals. It is however often difficult to identify the specific components in diet that serve to increase or decrease cancer risk since many food, such as beef steak and broccoli, contain low concentrations of both carcinogens and anticarcinogens. There are many international certifications in cooking field, such as Monde Selection?A.A.Certification?iTQi. They use the high quality evaluation methods to make the food become more safe.
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Diet
Cultural and religious diets
Many cultures hold some food preferences and some food taboos. Dietary choices can also define cultures and play a role in religion. For example, only kosher foods are permitted by Judaism, halal foods by Islam, and in Hinduism beef is restricted. In addition, the dietary choices of different countries or regions have different characteristics. This is highly related to a culture's cuisine.
Diet deficiencies
Dietary habits play a significant role in the health and mortality of all humans. Imbalances between the consumed fuels and expended energy results in either starvation or excessive reserves of adipose tissue, known as body fat. Poor intake of various vitamins and minerals can lead to diseases that can have far-reaching effects on health. For instance, 30% of the world's population either has, or is at risk for developing, iodine deficiency. It is estimated that at least 3 million children are blind due to vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin C deficiency results in scurvy. Calcium, Vitamin D, and phosphorus are inter-related; the consumption of each may affect the absorption of the others. Kwashiorkor and marasmus are childhood disorders caused by lack of dietary protein.
Moral, ethical, and health-conscious diets
Many individuals limit what foods they eat for reasons of morality, or other habit. For instance, vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Others choose a healthier diet, avoiding sugars or animal fats and increasing consumption of dietary fiber and antioxidants. Obesity, a serious problem in the western world, leads to higher chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer and many other diseases. More recently, dietary habits have been influenced by the concerns that some people have about possible impacts on health or the environment from genetically modified food. Further concerns about the impact of industrial farming (grains) on animal welfare, human health, and the environment are also having an effect on contemporary human dietary habits. This has led to the emergence of a movement with a preference for organic and local food.
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Nutrition and dietary problems
Between the extremes of optimal health and death from starvation or malnutrition, there is an array of disease states that can be caused or alleviated by changes in diet. Deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances in diet can produce negative impacts on health, which may lead to various health problems such as scurvy, obesity, or osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases as well as psychological and behavioral problems. The science of nutrition attempts to understand how and why specific dietary aspects influence health.
Nutrients in food are grouped into several categories. Macronutrients are fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Micronutrients are the minerals and vitamins. Additionally, food contains water and dietary fiber.
As previously discussed, the body is designed by natural selection to enjoy sweet and fattening foods for evolutionary diets, ideal for hunters and gatherers. Thus, sweet and fattening foods in nature are typically rare and are very pleasurable to eat. In modern times, with advanced technology, enjoyable foods are easily available to consumers. Unfortunately, this promotes obesity in adults and children alike.
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Legal definition
Some countries list a legal definition of food, often referring them with the word foodstuff. These countries list food as any item that is to be processed, partially processed, or unprocessed for consumption. The listing of items included as food include any substance intended to be, or reasonably expected to be, ingested by humans. In addition to these foodstuffs, drink, chewing gum, water, or other items processed into said food items are part of the legal definition of food. Items not included in the legal definition of food include animal feed, live animals (unless being prepared for sale in a market), plants prior to harvesting, medicinal products, cosmetics, tobacco and tobacco products, narcotic or psychotropic substances, and residues and contaminants.
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Types of food
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See also
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References
Sources:
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Further reading
Collingham, E. M. (2011). The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food
Katz, Solomon (2003). The Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Scribner
Nestle, Marion (2007). Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, University Presses of California, revised and expanded edition, ISBN 0-520-25403-1
Mobbs, Michael (2012). Sustainable Food Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, ISBN 9781920705541
The Future of Food (2015). A panel discussion at the 2015 Digital Life Design (DLD) Annual Conference. "How can we grow and enjoy food, closer to home, further into the future? MIT Media Lab's Kevin Slavin hosts a conversation with food artist, educator, and entrepreneur Emilie Baltz, professor Caleb Harper from MIT Media Lab's CityFarm project, the Barbarian Group's Benjamin Palmer, and Andras Forgacs, the co-founder and CEO of Modern Meadow, who is growing 'victimless' meat in a lab. The discussion addresses issues of sustainable urban farming, ecosystems, technology, food supply chains and their broad environmental and humanitarian implications, and how these changes in food production may change what people may find delicious ... and the other way around." Posted on the official YouTube Channel of DLD
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External links
The dictionary definition of food at Wiktionary
Media related to food at Wikimedia Commons
Food Timeline
Wikibooks Cookbook
Food, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Rebecca Spang, Ivan Day and Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (In Our Time, Dec. 27, 2001)
