How Food is Made: An illustrated guide to how everyday food is produced

By Ayla Marika

What if you knew how the hot dog you are eating was really made?

 

"How Food is Made...should be compulsory in every home. And school. And public library."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forssa Light Publishing
• Release date: Aug 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9780994620125

Ayla Marika

Ayla Marika is an Australian visual artist, illustrator and graphic designer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) from Curtin University of Technology and an Advanced Diploma of Public Relations from Canberra Institute of Technology. For the past decade, she has worked in administration, marketing and advertising for the education sector. Her interests include permaculture, implementing self-sufficiency strategies, cooking, brewing, plant medicine and food activism.

Book preview

glossary

Abv. Alcohol by volume (abv) describes the percentage of alcohol in an alcoholic beverage.

Carcinogenic. A substance that has the potential to cause cancer.

Clarify. To remove impurities that cause cloudiness in a liquid.

Coagulate. To congeal or curdle, to form curds. Coagulants are used to convert liquid into a semi-solid mass, such as in cheese or tofu.

Culture. Beneficial bacteria used for a specific purpose (eg yogurt cultures).

Cure. To preserve food, especially meat, with salt or by drying or smoking.

Denature. To break the natural structure of a protein.

Emulsify. To bind together ingredients that would naturally stay separated, using an emulsifier. For example, lecithin (in eggs) binds water and oil together, forming an emulsion.

Enzyme. A substance in animals and plants that facilitates and speeds up natural reactions. For example, the enzyme invertase, which is found in bee stomachs, breaks sucrose down into glucose and fructose.

Extruder. A machine that pushes out dough or a molten mass of food, such as a candy mixture, into a continuous rope or sheet.

Ferment. To break food down from one form into another, using bacteria, yeast or mould. For example, the conversion of sugar into alcohol and CO2 by yeast.

Fortify, Enrich. To add vitamins and minerals to food.

Homogenise. To mechanically blend a liquid in such a way that particles that would naturally stay separated, become inseparable (eg fat in milk).

Leavening. An additive that helps baked goods rise (eg baking soda, yeast).

Oxidise. A chemical reaction in food caused by oxygen, which is often undesirable.

Pasteurise. To heat a liquid or other food to kill unwanted bacteria.

Reduce. To evaporate water through simmering, making it thicker and less runny.

Standardise. To adjust levels of individual components in food to create a predictable, standard product. For example, adjusting the percentage of fat in milk.

Sterilise. To destroy all traces of microorganisms and fungi.

Yeast. An organism that consumes sugar and releases alcohol and CO2.

introduction

How Food is Made explains how the most common foods in your home are made. This book is for anyone curious about food, especially parents and teenagers.

For many years, a question has haunted me every time I looked in my pantry across countless packages, jars and boxes—what is all this stuff? So, to satisfy my own curiosity, I started researching food production.

During my research, I noticed a growing trend of people who feel very disconnected from the origin of the food they eat. Studies repeatedly show that children today do not have a basic understanding of how food is made, such as where milk comes from or what different vegetables look like. In some cases, it isn’t just children either—it’s their parents, too.

This is no surprise, when you consider that many families today rely on processed foods instead of home cooking. We are also faced with a food industry that actively disguises or sugar-coats information relating to food production by using clever advertising, sly wording and attractive labels. And so this book came to be, as an attempt to fill this gaping hole in our collective understanding of food.

In How Food is Made, I have attempted to demystify complex processes and jargon used in the food industry and translate them into everyday language. Each infographic covers the most common processing method; however, there are likely to be other possible methods that may also be used. Likewise, the ingredients listed are a snapshot of just some of the most commonly used ingredients and will vary across brands and styles.

How Food is Made is designed to be a fun and entertaining read. Keep it on your coffee or dining table. Browse through it during breakfast. Discuss the topics with your family and guests. If this book sparks conversations about food, empowers you to think differently about the food you eat, and whets your appetite to learn more about how food is made, then this book will have fulfilled its purpose.

grains & starches

FLOUR

description

Flour is grain, usually wheat, that has been ground into a fine powder. Other common flours include rye, rice, corn, buckwheat, spelt and potato.

Wheat flour comes in several grades and types, which are based on its protein level, starch level, grain type (hard wheat or soft wheat), and how finely milled the flour is. Wheat flour can be produced from soft wheat (low gluten) or hard wheat (high gluten). Common wheat flour types are plain (all-purpose), self-raising, soft, strong, and pasta flour.

Soft flour is made from soft wheat and has a low gluten content suited to cakes and pastries. Strong (baker's) flour comes from hard wheat and has a high gluten content ideal for bread making. Plain flour is a blend of soft and hard wheat flours and is suitable for all types of cooking. Self-raising is simply plain flour with baking powder added, used in cooking where leavening is required.

Wheat grain consists of endosperm, bran (husk), and germ. Bran is rich in fibre, while germ is rich in healthy fats and nutrients. Endosperm consists mostly of protein (gluten) and starch. The difference between white and wholemeal flours is the ratio of bran, germ and endosperm in the flour. White flour is mainly just endosperm, with most of the bran and germ removed. Wholemeal flour retains the bran and germ and is considered healthier than white flour.

Flour may contain small amounts of additives such as bleaching agent (eg benzoyl peroxide, chlorine dioxide) and bread improvers such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Some countries mandate that flour must be fortified with added vitamins and minerals, usually Iron and B vitamins.

history

Wheat has been cultivated and used since before Neolithic times.

Wheat grain estimated to be 11,000 years old has been found in ancient silos in Jordan, and evidence shows that wheat or corn was milled with pounding stones 6,000 years ago. Other ancient techniques for making flour included the mortar and pestle or saddle quern. A saddle quern, similar to a mortar and pestle, is a cylindrical stone pushed back and forth in a long stone bowl to crush grain.

Millstones have been the primary method for milling grain for most of agricultural history. Millstones are comprised of two large circular stones placed perpendicular to one another—one lying horizontal and the other placed vertically on top. The vertical stone is rolled over the horizontal stone, pulled by humans/livestock or powered by wind/water, which crushes grain between the two stones into flour.

Ancient Romans were the first to use animal-driven millstones; though hand-turned millstones had been in use since much earlier. Water wheels were used from around 100–300 BCE, followed by windmills (600–800 CE). Water wheels and windmills were the main methods used to mill grain until the late 1800s, when the modern steel roller system was invented.

Steel rollers became the preferred method for milling grain as they produced a finer and cleaner flour and were more efficient. This is the method still used by most commercial flour producers today. Stone-ground flour is produced as a speciality item, preferred by some people for its flavour and purported health benefits.

ingredients

infographic

How Flour is Made

RICE

description

Rice is an important grain and food staple for many cultures across the world.

Rice is gluten-free and is usually cooked in liquid such as water, milk or stock. It is used in countless savoury and sweet dishes, both hot and cold. Rice is also made into vinegar, noodles, oil, flour, paper, non-dairy milk and alcohol.

Rice is a semi-aquatic grass, usually grown in water on rice paddies. The majority of the world’s rice is cultivated and consumed in Asia. While there are several thousand rice varieties, Oryza sativa (Asian rice) is the most common with two main subspecies, indica (long grain) such as jasmine and basmati, and japonica (short/medium grain) such as arborio and sushi rice.

Rice comes in white or brown varieties, with white being most popular. Brown rice tastes nuttier and is more nutritious as it retains the bran and germ. The bran and germ are removed from white rice, which may then be polished with talc or glucose. White rice is high in starch but low in nutrients; therefore, it is often enriched with added vitamins and minerals.

Rice farming presents some environmental issues. Bacteria that thrive in rice paddy water cause over one-tenth of the world’s methane emissions. Rice is also a water-intensive crop, with around one-third of the world’s irrigation water used for rice farming.

Arsenic in rice is also a major concern. Studies show that arsenic pollution in rice is largely due to land and groundwater contamination caused by decades of arsenic-based pesticide and fertiliser use. Due to being grown in water, rice has a tendency to absorb arsenic more readily than other grain crops such as wheat.

history

Rice is one of the world’s oldest crops, the history of which is uncertain.

It is generally accepted that rice was first domesticated in China 8,000–9,000 years ago and, from there, spread to other nearby countries. This theory has been contested, however, after a rice specimen found in South Korea in 2003 was dated to 13,000 BCE, which would make it the world’s oldest. It is said that Alexander the Great took rice to Greece sometime around 330 BCE after an expedition into India. From Greece, rice then spread to neighbouring countries.

Rice is a cornerstone of culture and art throughout Asia, where it symbolises prosperity, fertility and life, and features in religious ceremonies. The tradition of throwing rice at a wedding as a symbol of fertility, is today represented by the throwing of confetti. Rice also features as a deity in several cultures, known by names such as Inari (Japan), Phosop (Thailand) and Dewi Sri (Java, Bali, Sudan).

Although less common today, Oryza glaberrima (African rice) has been grown in West Africa for around 3,500 years. African rice was introduced to America in the 1600s via the slave trade. By the 1700s, high quality American ‘Carolina Gold’ rice had become a major export item.

A world famous tourist site, The Banaue Rice Terraces in the Philippines features 2,000 year old terraces for growing rice that were hand-carved into the mountainside. Due to the growing world population, it has been estimated that demand for rice will have increased by over 50% in the 30 years between 1995 and 2025.

ingredients

infographic

How Rice is Made

PASTA

description

Pasta is a food staple made from flour, usually wheat.

Pasta is popular as it is a fast, easy and cheap food, with a long shelf life when dry. While the term ‘pasta’ most often refers to Italian-style pasta, Asian-style noodles may also be considered to be a form of pasta. Italian pasta is often served with tomato or cream based sauces, flavoured with herbs and cheese. Popular forms of pasta include spaghetti, macaroni and lasagne.

Italian pasta usually uses high-gluten durum wheat; although gluten-free pasta made from rice or corn is also available. Egg may be used to give flavour and firmness to pasta, and oil is sometimes added to help improve pasta made from poor quality flour. Vegetable purees may also be added to dough to create green, red and orange coloured pasta. Black pasta is created by adding squid ink.

There are over 300 forms of Italian pasta to suit every cooking style, including soups, sauces and baking. Dried pasta (shown here) is most common; however, fresh pasta is also available, either plain or with fillings such as cheese, vegetables or meat. Fresh pasta is pasteurised to kill bacteria through steam heating.

Asian noodles are manufactured in much the same way as Italian pasta but tend to use a wider variety of flours including wheat, rice, buckwheat and mung bean. Some are flavoured with seaweed or green tea. In Asian cuisine, noodles are used in soups or stir-fried with flavours such as soy, chilli and ginger. Instant noodles are made by packing noodles into blocks, which are steamed, fried in oil, then packaged with seasoning sachets.

history