CREATING PROCESSED FOOD… THE HEALTHY WAY

In the not-too-distant past, a housewife who wanted to prepare sinigang would have to handpick the tart, unripe tamarind fruits, boil these in water (preferably rice washing) and when the fruits have become tender, mash them one by one into a gooey pulp, taking care to remove the hard shell. Today, all she has to do is open a packet and dissolve the contents in a pot of boiling stew to make the perfect sinigang.

Indeed, in modern societies where the household food is no longer prepared freshly from raw ingredients, processed food has become a veritable food basket in a packet. They’re handy, longer-lasting and easy to store. And they come in a variety of flavors.

Food Processing… A Basic Way to Preserve Food

The basic principle of all methods of food processing is the retardation, or preferably, the elimination of spoilage. Early in history, man resorted to various procedures for reducing the perishability of foods. In 2700 B.C. ancient Egyptians and Romans started using mustard seeds to retain the freshness of fruit juices. The first authenticated description of the drying of the leaves of the tea bush dates back to about 780 A. D. in China.

Among the earliest methods of food preservation were drying – solar drying being the most common in the tropics – salting, fermenting, freezing and pickling. In many Asian, South American and African countries these rudimentary processing techniques remain essentially the same even after the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

The dramatic advancement in military technology during the 19th and 20th century largely influenced the modernization of food processing technology. French Chef Nicholas Appert paved the way for tinning and then canning in 1810. In 1862, Louis Pasteur discovered pasteurization, which significantly advanced the micro-biological safety of food.

“But because fresh produce was still readily available, mechanized food processing technology was not developed until only in the 1930s. The population explosion and the emerging consumer society in the developed world furthered the development of food processing,” informs Mr. Ramon Reyes of Marigold Commodities Corporation, maker of Mama Sita’s food mixes and sauces.

Advances include techniques such as spray drying, hot air drying, juice concentrates, freeze drying and the introduction of artificial sweeteners, colorants and preservatives such as sodium benzoate and saccharine. In the late 20th century, products such as dried instant soups, reconstituted fruits and juices, and self cooking meals were also developed.

Easy to Cook, Easy to Eat

“Unknowingly, we eat relatively few foods in a natural, raw state,” says Dr. Leoncio Raymundo from UPLB. “Almost all of the familiar foods we love to eat are processed in one way or another.” The demand for more food, and the increasingly busy lifestyles people lead make food processing imperative – with it consumers enjoy the luxury of convenience and choice.

Working men and women who have little time in their hands for cooking can simply head to the supermarket to be able to enjoy a hot meal at home. They can also choose from a vast range of food products that include traditional, organic and ethnic variants.

“Processed foods also prolong the shelf life of food, allowing them to be stored for a longer period of time, and be transported long distances from the point of manufacture to the market. Thus, food additives are needed to help maintain the taste, appearance and nutritional quality of processed food,” informs Dr. Raymundo. The most important additives in these respects are preservatives, antioxidants, emulsifiers, flavorings and colors.

Natural VS. Artificial… Is There a Difference?

While food processing is a science, food formulation is an art. The formulator should practice the highest quality of standards in food aesthetics to come up with tasty, visually pleasing and wonderfully smelling ready meals. This motivates the makers of Mama Sita’s to use only natural ingredients and extracts in producing processed food products of the highest quality.

While citric acid has long been added to fruit drinks and extracts for both flavoring and preservation, Mama Sita’s adheres to its corporate code of using only natural fruit extracts in the manufacture of its mixes to preserve the original flavor, color and texture of tamarind (in the Sinigang sa Sampalok Mix) and guavas (in the Sinigang sa Bayabas Mix).

Today, a great number of food products, including pickled fruits and vegetables, are pasteurized so that the acetic acid used in pickling serves mainly as a flavoring. Its glacial form, however, found favor as a cloudifier to make synthetic vinegar look real. In manufacturing its popular Sukang Tuba, Mama Sita’s cuts no corners, allowing the coconut juice to complete the acetification process. The result is vinegar with a full bodied flavor that imparts the right tang to a variety of dishes.

In food production, colors act as a code to represent certain flavors. This causes the color of food to influence the perceived flavor, in anything from breath mints
to juices. For this reason, food manufacturers add dyes or artificial color to their products – to exaggerate a natural color as perceived by the consumer, and sometimes, to create effect, like black ice cream.

While artificial dyes represent the bulk of food coloring additives, natural dyes are just as effective in offsetting color loss due to light, air, extremes of temperature, moisture, and storage conditions. Chlorella, beet juice, turmeric, saffron and paprika are already widely used as colorants. To enhance the color of some of its products, Mama Sita’s uses annatto extract to impart a reddish-orange hue. And since these ingredients also possess distinct flavors, they help enhance the overall flavor of the product.

Processed foods using natural ingredients do tend to possess a number of unstable properties such as discoloration, caking and a shorter shelf life. But the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks – they produce richer flavors and aromas that bring to mind the bounty of land and sea. More importantly, they carry out the basic function of food: to sustain life. Food, without artificial substitutes, offers Nature’s rich flavors and natural goodness.

“That is why we encourage consumers to read the label of the products they buy,” says Mr. Reyes. “Mama Sita’s prints an ordinal arrangement of ingredient volume in the label to inform consumers about what they’re getting—which means that ingredients are listed in the order of how much quantity was used. The Bureau of Food and Drugs mandates this ordinal ranking in the list and this shows that Mama Sita’s products are made from natural ingredients and no artificial substitutes,” says Mr. Ramon Reyes of Mama Sita’s.

Mama Sita’s commitment to healthier food products has inspired it to form a tight research and development collaboration with UPLB. The alliance helps extends findings made and techniques developed. With the arrangement, any pilot developments formed at UPLB will have a commercial test run at Mama Sita’s up-to-date facilities – ensuring the continuous development of healthy processed food production.

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