Processing food: a study of the eating and the Food Engineerings role in the current world context

• Autor(a) principal: Amorim, Alessandra
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/74/74132/tde-10072023-092003/
• topic: Alimento ultra-processado; Antropologia da alimentação; Food anthropology; Food guideline; Food processing; Food safety; Food security; Guia alimentar; Processamento de alimentos; Segurança alimentar; Segurança dos alimentos; Ultra-processed food

Among the current waves of misconceptions, misinformation and mistakes about food processing, the objective of this Dissertation was to make an historical, anthropological, social and economic analysis of the eating, highlighting the importance of the Food Science, Technology and Engineering (FSTE) in the current framework of society, as well as to call for a multidisciplinary dialogue when building food guidelines. The scope includes the frontiers of Food Engineering and related fields of food knowledge, and it build points with references strategically drawn from a wide range of key-word databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus, Pubmed, e.g., and literature by recognized authors. The results were organized into 3 chapter topics: (1) A holistic analysis about the historical and anthropological viewpoint, which can be connected with the decision of consumption as well as its relation with the food supply chain (FSC), regulatory bodies, and political entities; (2) The study of the role and duty of FSC functions and the technic-scientific knowledge in food safety and food security, and its impact on public policy (long-term quality food security) and the private sector (consumer trends and adaptations to the demands), which highlights the necessity of dialogue and trans disciplinary efforts; (3) A critical discussion about the importance of the Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) as a public policy tool, also considering sustainability, humanitarian issues and communication strategies, in addition to health aspects. Given the current heightened awareness about health, ethics, sustainability, and the demands for healthier, ethical and environmentally friendly products, but that keep food tasty and practical to eat, consumer expectations have risen to a level of multidimensional desires. Nevertheless, concepts such as natural, process, traditional, to name but a few catchwords, have not been clearly defined or are widely understood. Most notably, concepts such as ultra-processed food are misleading from the FSTE point of view, and such logic has emerged and become embedded as unconscious public opinion. Sustainable and healthy food access is a universal right, and inter and trans disciplinary work for dialogue and union among the associated areas of disciplines is now necessary for progress.