Question

What are the processes involved in the preparation of sugar cane, salt, vegetable oil and coffee?

Answer 1

Food processing: The process of transforming food items into a form that can be used for a longer period.

Processed food: The food obtained by the process of food processing.

• The various methods used to process food are cooking, canning, pickling, etc.
• Processing of food enhances the shelf life of food products and transforms raw food materials into products that are attractive and ready to be sold in the market.
• Sugar is obtained from sugarcane in the form of juice but it is processed by the methods like filtration, evaporation, and decolourisation to obtain the crystals of sugar which are ready to be used and available in the market.

Examples of processed food: Sugar, salt, vegetable oil, coffee

(1) Processes involved in the preparation of sugar:

Sugar is obtained when sugarcane juice is extracted from sugarcanes and the following processes are followed:

• Filtration of the sugar cane juice
• Evaporation of the juice so that water evaporates and concentrated sugar syrup is formed
• Decolourisation with animal charcoal to remove the brownish colour of sugarcane
• Crystallisation to make sugar crystals
• Drying the crystals

(2) Processes involved in the preparation of salt:

• Evaporation of seawater so that salt is left behind
• Collection of the crude or impure salt crystals
• Recrystallisation to purify the salt crystals
• Drying the crystals

(3) Processes involved in the preparation of vegetable oil:

• Vegetable oil is extracted from the oilseeds of the plants by the process of steam distillation.

(4) Processes involved in the preparation of coffee:

Coffee is extracted from coffee beans by the following processes:

• Drying of the coffee berries
• Roasting of the berries to enhance their flavour
• Powdering the coffee beans
• Packing them and selling them as coffee powder