Now that we have found out about the history of food and the many different kinds of food that is around, it’s time to find out some more about how we understand taste.
So let’s dive deeper into this topic and some more.
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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, 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- The World Bank reported that the European Union was the top food importer in 2005, followed at a distance by the US 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
- 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
- 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
- One reason for the increase in food prices may be the increase in oil prices at the same time
- 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
- 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
- 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
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