The science of food
What is the drive to satisfy the need for food?
Hunger
List the 6 social factors that influence food choices
Education, Income, Accomodation, Location, Cultural norms, Available time
Identify one question when considering the 'source' of food information
Is the source and author credible and trustworthy? Do they have qualifications in the field they are providing information in?
What is food security?
Global food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Outline guideline 3 of the Australian Dietary Guidelines.
Limit intake of foods containing saturated fat, added salt, added sugars and alcohol.
List the accessory organs in the sequential process of macronutrient digestion.
Tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, gallbladder
Identify two foods that positively affect your mental health and two foods that negatively affect your mental health.
Positively - Fruits, Vegetables, Fish, Legumes, Eggs
Negatively - Cakes, biscuits, chocolate, processed meats
Compare a food trend and a food fad
Food fads are foods or ingredients that people are interested in for a short-period of time. Fads are generally short-lived and at the time when something is popular it can seem like everyone is talking about it.
A food trend is more related to movement and change of people. At times, these food trends can tend to last longer and become part of popular food culture.
Identify 3 key issues that impact feeding a rising world population.
Climate change, limited resources, food waste, inequalities, people's diet, urbanisation
What is a symptom of a food allergy and food intolerance?
Food allergy - hives, rashes, swelling, closing of airways
Food intolerance - bloating, flatulences, abdominal pain
How are carbohydrates utilised within the body?
Carbohydrates are the body’s main supplier of energy
Fibre is another type of carbohydrate found in plant food. It is broken down by bacteria in your large intestine and helps to keep our digestive system healthy.
Give an example for the three behavioural principles - Repetition, Modelling & Exposure
Repetition - Preparing food in different ways
Modelling - Sitting around the dinner table to share a meal
Exposure - involve child in food shopping and selection of food items.
Outline the 3 criteria when assessing the validity of weight loss or nutrient supplement claims.
1. Commercial gain - Does the company have more of an interest in making a profit, or are they focused on improving customer health?
2. Ethics - Are the claims made by the product or program truthful?
3. Effectiveness of the product - Does the evidence given allow us to determine whether the product is effective in what it claims to provide?
Explain two sustainable farming practices and how they would contribute to food security.
Minimum tillage farming is a term used to describe broadacre farming practices that minimise damage to the soil structure and the capacity of the soil to retain water, thereby improving the conditions for plant growth. It includes practices such as direct-drilling and no-till farming.
Pasture cropping, or regenerative agriculture, is a low-impact, environmentally sustainable food production system that combines grazing and cropping into one system. It involves sowing an annual cereal crop into an existing perennial pasture using direct drilling.
Australia’s main cereal crops, including wheat, barley and sorghum, all require a large amount of nitrogen to grow. This can lead to depletion of the nitrogen stores in the soil. A system designed to overcome this problem is crop rotation, which involves planting a series of different crops in a specific order in the same field.
Explain three stages in the food system.
Food service, food packaging, consumption, food transportation, disposal or recycling, marketing, retailing
What does FODMAP stand for?
fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols
Explain a government-led initiative in the manufacturing industry.
The Healthy Food Partnership - The Australian Government’s Department of Health established the Healthy Food Partnership (HFP), a collaborative program between the public health sector and the food industry. The aim of the HFP is to encourage food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt, saturated fats, and sugar in the packaged foods they make. The HFP believes that supporting companies that make positive changes will help reduce the incidence of diet-related diseases, overweight, and obesity in Australia.
Health Star Rating - The Health Star Rating system was developed by the Australian and state governments through consultations with consumer groups, the manufacturing industry and public health groups. The main reason for implementing the Health Star Rating system was to enable consumers to make healthy food choices. In this system, food’s overall nutritional profiles are rated from ½ a star to 5 stars. The general idea of the system is that the higher the rating that appears on the food label, the healthier the food. The system is designed as a comparison tools between multi-ingredient packaged foods.
Identify and give an example of the content and health claims.
Nutrient content claim e.g. 'Low in salt'
General level health claim e.g. 'Probiotics naturally help regulate your digestive system'
High level health claim e.g. Phytosterols may reduce blood cholesterol
What are sociocultural and ethical concerns? Give an example of both.
Sociocultural concerns are issues in society that social groups have specific concerns about. These concerns are shaped by the group’s attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and values about.
Ethical concerns, on the other hand, raise questions about what is right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust, and good or bad. Ethical concerns require careful examination of potential consequences
What are the six key pillars of food sovereignty?
Builds knowledge and skills
Focuses on food for people
Works with nature
Puts control locally
Values food providers
Localised food systems
Explain the process of digestion of proteins.
In the mouth, chewing increases the surface area of the food particles and allows digestion to occur more quickly (mechanical digestion)
In the stomach, gastric juices are released that contain hydrochloric acid. The enzyme, pepsin is activated in this acidic environment that starts the chemical digestion of protein into large peptides. The stomach acid denatures, or unfolds, the proteins in the food so the digestive enzymes can act on it
The peptides in the stomach now move to the small intense for further digestion
In the small intestine, the pancreas secretes a bicarbonate buffer to neutralize the acidic food particles from the stomach.
The neutral environment of this portion of the gut encourages the protein-digesting enzyme trypsin secreted from the pancreas (pancreas protease)
These enzymes work on the protein peptides systematically breaking them down (enzymatic hydrolysis) into even smaller peptides and then snipping off the amino acids one by one
Protease enzymes located on the microvilli further break down proteins into amino acids ready for absorption
Explain the cycle of restrictive dieting.
1. Adopt a restrictive diet
2. Break the diet when socialising or eating with others
3. Begin overeating or binge eating
4. Gain weight
5. Develop low self-esteem due to a change in body image
6. Readopt a restrictive diet
Outline 3 ways food labels can be used to compare, select and prepare food.
List of ingredients and percentage labelling, The Nutritional Information Panel, Understanding other terms used for fat, salt and sugar, Country of origin labelling, Directions for Use and Storage, Health Star Rating, Quick Response (QR) code
Identify four threats to biodiversity and explain how one of them would impact food security.
Climate change and global warming: A lack of biodiversity can make it challenging for ecosystems to recover after events such as intense bushfires, droughts, heatwaves, floods, and storms, caused by climate change and global warming.
Erosion: The top layer of soil contains a lot of nutrients and living organisms; it is where the most biodiversity in the soil exists. Erosion occurs when the top layer of soil is blown away by the wind, thus a significant portion of biodiverse soil is lost.
Land clearing and urbanisation: Land clearing and urbanisation decrease the amount of natural habitat on farms for animals, plants, and other living organisms, thereby decreasing biodiversity.
Lack of crop diversity: Currently, around 60% of crop production comes from the intense agriculture of only nine crops. Improving biodiversity in agriculture will assist in creating an ecosystem that can recover and adapt to the impact of climate change.
- Use of pesticides: The use of pesticides on crops not only kills pests but can destroy helpful insects that contribute to an area’s biodiversity. For example, bees and butterflies are responsible for the pollination (fertilisation) of crops and plants. Using pesticides can destroy bees and butterflies; this decreases or eliminates pollination and contributes to a lack of biodiversity.
Outline the role of our diet on our gut microbiota and provide some suggestions on how to maintain a healthy gut microbiota.
We can manipulate the balance of our gut microbiota by paying attention to our diet.
The diversity and quantity of what we can contribute to the diversity and quantity of our gut microbiota.
Minimally processed foods and those high in natural fibre will encourage the growth of healthy gut bacteria.
Examples of foods rich in dietary fibre include fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and wholegrains
A poorly balanced diet can affect the composition and number of gut bacteria which can lead to poor health outcomes.
Foods that are highly processed such as sugar sweetened soft drinks, cakes and lollies promote the growth of bad bacteria.