Fundamentals of Food Technology

Cooking

Cooking: The process of subjecting foods to the action of heat is termed as cooking.

Objectives of cooking
1. Improves the taste and food quality
For ex. roasting of groundnut and coffee seeds, frying of onions and papads, cooking meat with spices, frying cashew nuts in ghee, etc.

2. Destruction of microorganisms
Harmful microorganisms causes infections or produce toxins. Eg. Clostridium botulism and Salmonella. Some moulds produce toxin. Aspergillus flavus produces aflatoxin in groundnuts, cereals and spices. Cooking helps to destroy the harmful microorganisms eg in cooked meat.

3. Improves digestibility
Cooking softens the connective tissue of the meat and the coarse fibres of cereals, pulses and vegetables so that the digestive period is shortened and Gastro Intestinal tract is less subjected to irritation. Cooking improves the texture and hence it becomes more chewable. Cooking also bursts the starch digestion is easier, rapid and complete. When dry heat is applied to starches they are converted to easily digestible dextrins. Cooking increases the access to enzymes and improves digestibility.

4. Increases variety
By cooking, same food can be made into different dishes, for eg. rice can be made into plain, bular, lemon rice, biriyani or combination with pulses into idli, wheat can be made into chapatis, bun, paratha or halwa.

5. Increase consumption of food
Cooking improves the texture and makes the food chewable. Improvement in texture and flavour by cooking increases the consumption of food to meet our nutritional requirement.

6. Increase availability of food
Raw egg contains avidin which binds biotin making biotin unavailable to the body. By cooking, avidin gets denatured and biotin is available to the body. Toxin substances from khesari dhal can also be removed by boiling in and throwing away the water. By reducing phytic acid, oxalic acid the availability of minerals can be enhanced.

7. Concentration of nutrients
This may be due to removal of moisture or using combination of foods or due to cooking procedures ex. Sweets, dehydrated foods, dry fruits.