Food Bio Technology

by

<<–2/”>a >body>



Food bio technology

  • Biotechnology is defined in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity, i.e. “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or Derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use”
  • Biotechnology as applied to Food Processing in most developing countries makes use of microbial inoculants to enhance properties such as the taste, aroma, shelf-life, texture and nutritional value of foods.
  • The process whereby micro-organisms and their ENZYMES bring about these desirable changes in food materials is known as Fermentation-2/”>Fermentation.
  • Fermentation processing is also widely applied in the production of microbial cultures, enzymes, flavours, fragrances, food additives and a range of other high value-added products.
  •  These high value products are increasingly produced in more technologically advanced developing countries for use in their food and non-food processing applications.
  • Many of these high value products are also imported by developing countries for use in their food-processing applications.

agriculture & Food Biotechnology

  • Biotechnology is necessary to maintain our agriculture competitive and remunerative and to achieve Nutrition security in the face of major challenges such as
  • Declining per capita availability of arable land;
  • Lower productivity of crops, Livestock and Fisheries-2/”>Fisheries, heavy production losses due to biotic (insects pests, Weeds) and abiotic (salinity, drought, alkalinity) stresses
  • Heavy postharvest crop damage and declining availability of water as an agricultural input.
  • Investment in agricultural related biotechnology has resulted in significantly enhanced R&D capability and institutional building over the years.
  • However, progress has been rather slow in converting the research leads into usable products.
  • Uncertainties regarding IPR management and regulatory requirements, poor understanding of risk assessment and lack of effective management and commercialization strategies have been significant impediments. India owns very few genes of applied value.
  • The majority of the genes under use about 40 are currently held by MNCs and have been received under material transfer agreements for R&D purpose without clarity on the potential for commercialization.
  • The spectrum of biotechnology application in agriculture is very wide and includes
  • Generation of improved crops, animals, Plants of agro Forestry importance;
  • Microbes;
  • Use of molecular markers to tag genes of interest;
  • Accelerating of breeding through marker assisted selection;
  • Fingerprinting of cultivars, land raises, germplasm stocks;
  • DNA based diagnostics for pests / pathogens of crops, farm animals and fish;
  • Assessment and monitoring of bio diversity;
  • In vitro mass multiplication of elite planting material;
  • Embryo transfer technology for animal breeding; food and feed biotechnology.
  • Plants and animals are being used for the production of therapeutically or industrially useful products, the emphasis being on improving efficiency and lowering the cost of production.
  • However, emphasis should not be on edible Vaccines for which use in real life condition is difficult.
  • Nutrition and balanced diet are emerging to be important Health promotional strategies.
  • Biotechnology has a critical role in developing and processing value added products of enhanced nutritive quality and providing tools for ensuring and monitoring food quality and safety.
  •  It has been estimated that if Biofertilizers were used to substitute only 25% of chemical Fertilizers on just 50% of India’s crops the potential would be 2,35,000 MT.
  • Today about 13,000 MT of Biofertilizers are used – only 0.36% of the total fertilizer use. The projected production target by 2011 is roughly around 50,000 23 MT.
  • Biopesticides have fared slightly better with 2.5% share of the total pesticide market of 2700 crores and an annual Growth rate of 10-15 %.
  • In spite of the obvious advantages, several constraints have limited their wider usage such as products of inconsistent quality, short shelf life, sensitivity to drought, temperature, and agronomic conditions.

CURRENT USE, RESEARCH AND IMPENDING DEVELOPMENT OF FOODS PRODUCED THROUGH MODERN BIOTECHNOLOGY

Foods produced through modern biotechnology can be categorized as follows:

  1. Foods consisting of or containing living/viable organisms, e.g. maize.
  2. Foods derived from or containing ingredients derived from GMOs, e.g. flour, food protein products, or oil from GM soybeans.
  3. Foods containing single ingredients or additives produced by GM Microorganisms (GMMs), e.g. colours, VITAMINS and essential amino acids.
  4. Foods containing ingredients processed by enzymes produced through GMMs, e.g. high-fructose corn syrup produced from starch, using the enzyme glucose isomerase (product of a GMM).

Crops

Crop breeding and the introduction of GM crops for food production

  • Conventional breeding, especially of crops, livestock and fish, focuses principally on increased productivity, increased resistance to diseases and pests, and enhanced quality with respect to nutrition and food processing.
  • Advances in cellular genetics and cell biology methods in the 1960s contributed to the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ that significantly increased varieties of staple Food Crops containing traits for higher yield and resistance to diseases and pests in a number of both developed and developing countries.
  • A key driver of the green revolution was to improve the potential to provide sufficient food for all.
  • The intensification and expansion of agriculture brought about by these methods and agricultural systems have, however, also resulted in new forms of health and environmental risks through, for example, increased use of agrochemicals and intensified cultivation resulting in Soil erosion.
  • Various transformation methods are used to transfer recombinant DNA into recipient species to produce a GMO.
  •  For plants, these include transformation mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens (a common soil bacterium that contains genetic Elements for infection of plants) and biolistics shooting recombinant DNA placed on microparticles into recipient cells.
  • The methods used in the transformation of various animal species include microinjection, electroporation and germ-line cells.
  • The success rate of transformations in animals tends to be lower than in plants, and to vary from species to species, thus requiring the use of many animals.
  • Genetic modification is often faster than conventional breeding techniques, as stable expression of a trait is achieved using far fewer breeding generations.
  • It also allows a more precise alteration of an organism than conventional methods of breeding, as it enables the selection and transfer of a specific gene of interest.
  • However, with the present technology, in many cases it leads to random insertion in the host genome, and consequently may have unintended developmental or physiological effects.
  • However, such effects can also occur in conventional breeding and the selection process used in modern biotechnology aims to eliminate such unintended effects to establish a stable and beneficial trait.

Livestock and fish

  • In terms of food production, the application of modern biotechnology to livestock falls into two main areas: animal production and human nutrition.
  • Many of the applications discussed below are in the early stages of R&D.

Fish

  • The projected increasing demand for fish suggests that GM fish may become important in both developed and developing countries.
  • Enhanced-growth Atlantic salmon containing a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon is likely to be the first GM animal on the food market.
  • These fish grow 3–5 times faster than their non-transgenic counterparts, to reduce production time and increase food availability.
  • At least eight other farmed fish species have been genetically modified for growth enhancement. Other fish in which genes for growth HORMONES have been experimentally introduced include grass carp, rainbow trout, tilapia and catfish.
  • In all cases, the growth-hormone genes are of fish origin.

Livestock and Poultry

  • Foods derived from GM livestock and poultry are far from commercial use.
  • Several growth enhancing novel genes have been introduced into pigs that have also affected the quality of the meat, i.e. the meat is more lean and tender.
  • This research was initiated over a decade ago, but owing to some morphological and physiological effects developed by the pigs, these have not been commercialized. Many modifications to milk have been proposed that either add new proteins to milk or manipulate endogenous proteins.
  • Recently, researchers from New Zealand developed GM cows that produce milk with increased levels of casein protein. Use of such protein-rich milk would increase the efficiency of cheese production.
  • Other work aims to reduce the lactose content of milk, with the intent of making milk available to the Population of milk-intolerant individuals.

Microorganisms

Microorganisms as foods

  • Currently, there are no known commercial products containing live genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs) on the market.
  • In the United Kingdom, GM yeast for beer production has been approved since 1993, but the product was never intended to be commercialized.
  • Other microorganisms used in foods (which are in the R&D phase) include starter fermentation cultures for various foods (bakery and brewing), and lactic acid bacteria in cheese.
  • R&D is also aimed at minimizing infections by pathogenic microorganisms and improving nutritional value and flavour.
  • Attempts have been made to genetically modify ruminant microorganisms for protecting livestock from poisonous feed components.
  • Microorganisms improved by modern biotechnology are also under development in the field of probiotics, which are live microorganisms that, when consumed in adequate amounts as part of food, confer a health benefit on the host.

Food and nutrition

  • R&D would be focused on:
  • Development of biotechnology tools for evaluating food safety, development of rapid diagnostic kits for detection of various food borne pathogens
  • Development of analogical methods for detection of genetically modified foods and products derived there from;
  • Development of nutraceuticals / health food supplements/ functional foods for holistic health;
  • Development of pre-cooked, ready-to-eat, nutritionally fortified food for school going children;
  • Development of suitable pro-biotics for therapeutic purposes and development of bio food additives.
  • It is proposed to set up (under the auspices of Department of Biotechnology) an autonomous institute for nutritional biology and food biotechnology (2006).

Biofertilizers and biopesticides

  • Priorities would include screening of elite strains of micros-organisms and / or productions of super-strains, better understanding of the dynamics of symbiotic nitrogen fixation, process optimization for fermentor – based technologies, improved shelf life, better quality standards, setting up accredited quality control laboratories and standardization of GMP guidelines.
  • Integrated nutrient management system would be further strengthened.

Fermentation Bioprocess

  • The fermentation bioprocess is the major biotechnological application in food processing. It is often one step in a sequence of food-processing operations, which may include cleaning, size reduction, soaking and cooking.
  • Fermentation bioprocessing makes use of microbial inoculants for enhancing properties such as the taste, aroma, shelf-life, safety, texture and nutritional value of foods.
  • Microbes associated with the raw food material and the processing Environment serve as inoculants in spontaneous fermentations, while inoculants containing high concentrations of live micro-organisms, referred to as starter cultures, are used to initiate and accelerate the rate of fermentation processes in non-spontaneous or controlled fermentation processes.
  • Microbial starter cultures vary widely in quality and purity.
  1. Spontaneous inoculation of fermentation processes
  • In many developing countries, fermented foods are produced primarily at the household and village level, using spontaneous methods of inoculation.
  • Spontaneous fermentations are largely uncontrolled.
  • A natural selection process, however, evolves in many of these processes which eventually results in the predominance of a particular type or group of micro-organisms in the fermentation medium
  1. “Appropriate” starter cultures as inoculants of fermentation processes
  • “Appropriate” starter cultures are widely applied as inoculants across the fermented food sector, from the household to industrial level in low-income and lower-middle-income economies.
  • These starter cultures are generally produced using a backslopping process which makes use of samples of a previous batch of a fermented product as inoculants
  1. Defined starter cultures as inoculants of fermentation processes
  • Few defined starter cultures have been developed for use as inoculants in commercial fermentation processes in developing countries.
  • Nevertheless, the past ten years have witnessed the development and application of laboratory-selected and pre-cultured starter cultures in food fermentations in a few developing countries.
  • “Defined starter cultures” consist of single or mixed strains of micro-organisms. They may incorporate adjunct culture preparations that serve a food-safety and preservative function.
  • Adjunct cultures do not necessarily produce fermentation acids or modify texture or flavour, but are included in the defined culture owing to their ability to inhibit pathogenic or spoilage organisms.
  • Their inhibitory activity is due to the production of one or several substances such as hydrogen peroxide, organic acids, diacetyl and bacteriocins.
  1. Defined starter cultures developed using the diagnostic tools of advanced biotechnologies
  • The use of DNA-based diagnostic techniques for strain differentiation can allow for the tailoring of starter cultures to yield products with specific flavours and/or textures.
  • Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) techniques have been applied in, for example, Thailand, in the molecular typing of bacterial strains and correlating the findings of these studies to flavour development during the production of the fermented pork sausage, nham.
  • The results of these analyses led to the development of three different defined starter cultures which are currently used for the commercial production of products having different flavour characteristics
  1. GM starter cultures
  • To date, no commercial GM micro-organisms that would be consumed as living organisms exist.
  • Products of industrial GM producer organisms are, however, widely used in food processing and no major safety concerns have been raised against them.
  • Rennet which is widely used as a starter in cheese production across the globe is produced using GM bacteria.

Food additives and processing aids

  • Enzymes, amino acids, vitamins, organic acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and certain complex Carbohydrates and flavouring agents used in food formulations are currently produced using GM micro-organisms

National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI)

  • National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) is the first Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, established in India on 18th February 2010.
  • The institute aims at catalysing the transformation of Agri – food sector in India.
  • The institute has the vision to be a nodal organization for knowledge generation and translational science leading to value added products based on Agri-food biotech innovations.
  • The main research focus of NABI is to harness biotechnological tools in the area of Agriculture Biotechnology, Food and Nutritional Biotechnology so as to provide sustainable and novel solutions towards quality food and nutrition.
  • Activities undertaken at NABI under different areas includes,
  1. Agricultural Biotechnology
  2. Food and Nutritional Biotechnology
  3. Human resource development
  4. Meeting and Courses
  5. Technology Transfer and Outreach
  • The institute has developed strong linkages with National and International organizations and industries.
  • The institute is part of agri-food cluster in the “Knowledge City” of Mohali (Punjab) along with its neighboring institutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


,

Food biotechnology is a rapidly growing field that uses living organisms to improve the quality, safety, and production of food. Bioprocessing, biosensors, biofuels, biofertilizers, biopesticides, bioremediation, food additives, food enzymes, food fermentation, food packaging, genetically modified foods, nutritional supplements, organic foods, probiotics, shelf life extension, taste enhancement, vitamins, and water treatment are all subtopics of food biotechnology.

Bioprocessing is the use of living organisms to convert raw materials into useful products. This can be done for a variety of purposes, such as producing biofuels, biofertilizers, and biopesticides. Biosensors are devices that use biological components to detect and measure changes in the environment. They can be used to monitor food quality, detect contaminants, and track the growth of bacteria. Biofuels are fuels that are produced from renewable Resources, such as plants and algae. They can be used to power cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Biofertilizers are fertilizers that are produced from living organisms. They can be used to improve the growth of crops and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. Biopesticides are pesticides that are produced from living organisms. They can be used to control pests without harming the environment. Bioremediation is the use of living organisms to clean up pollution. It can be used to remove contaminants from soil, water, and air. Food additives are substances that are added to food to improve its taste, texture, or appearance. They can also be used to extend shelf life or prevent foodborne illness. Food enzymes are proteins that are produced by living organisms. They can be used to break down food into smaller Molecules that are easier to digest. Food fermentation is a process that uses microorganisms to convert food into other products, such as alcohol, cheese, and yogurt. Food packaging is the process of enclosing food in a protective material to prevent spoilage. Food packaging can also be used to extend shelf life, improve product safety, and provide information about the product. Genetically modified foods are foods that have been modified using Genetic engineering techniques. Genetic engineering allows scientists to insert genes from one organism into another organism. This can be done to improve the nutritional value of food, make it resistant to pests or diseases, or extend its shelf life. Nutritional supplements are substances that are added to the diet to provide additional nutrients. They can be used to treat or prevent nutrient deficiencies. Organic foods are foods that are produced without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. They are also produced without the use of genetically modified organisms. Probiotics are live microorganisms that are similar to the “good” bacteria that are found naturally in the human gut. They can be used to improve gut health and prevent or treat diarrhea. Shelf life extension is the process of extending the time that food can be stored without spoiling. This can be done by using a variety of techniques, such as packaging, refrigeration, and freezing. Taste enhancement is the process of making food taste better. This can be done by using a variety of techniques, such as adding spices, herbs, or flavorings. Vitamins are essential nutrients that the body needs to function properly. They are found in a variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables, and Dairy products. Water treatment is the process of removing contaminants from water. This can be done for a variety of purposes, such as drinking water, Irrigation, and industrial use.

Food biotechnology is a promising field with the potential to improve the quality, safety, and production of food. It is a rapidly growing field with new developments being made all the time.

Here are some frequently asked questions and short answers about food biotechnology:

  1. Which of the following is not a type of food biotechnology?
    (A) Genetic engineering
    (B) Fermentation
    (C) Food processing
    (D) None of the above

  2. Genetic engineering is the process of modifying an organism’s genes. This can be done for a variety of purposes, such as improving crop yields or making food more nutritious.

  3. Fermentation is a process that uses microorganisms to convert sugars into alcohol or acids. This process is used to make a variety of foods, including beer, wine, and yogurt.

  4. Food processing is the process of converting raw food into a more convenient form. This can involve steps such as cooking, freezing, or canning.

  5. Which of the following is an example of a genetically modified food?
    (A) Broccoli
    (B) Corn
    (C) Tomatoes
    (D) All of the above

  6. Broccoli, corn, and tomatoes are all examples of genetically modified foods. These foods have been modified using genetic engineering to improve their nutritional value or to make them resistant to pests or diseases.

  7. What are some of the benefits of food biotechnology?
    (A) Improved crop yields
    (B) More nutritious food
    (C) Food that is resistant to pests or diseases
    (D) All of the above

  8. Some of the benefits of food biotechnology include improved crop yields, more nutritious food, and food that is resistant to pests or diseases. Genetic engineering can be used to make crops more resistant to drought, pests, and diseases. This can help to increase crop yields and reduce the use of pesticides. Genetic engineering can also be used to make crops more nutritious. For example, golden rice has been genetically modified to contain beta-carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A. This could help to reduce vitamin A deficiency in developing countries.

  9. What are some of the risks of food biotechnology?
    (A) The creation of new allergens
    (B) The transfer of genes to other organisms
    (C) The development of antibiotic resistance
    (D) All of the above

  10. Some of the risks of food biotechnology include the creation of new allergens, the transfer of genes to other organisms, and the development of antibiotic resistance. When genes are transferred from one organism to another, there is a risk that the new gene could express itself in an unexpected way. This could lead to the creation of a new allergen. There is also a risk that genes could be transferred from genetically modified crops to wild plants. This could have negative consequences for the environment. Finally, there is a risk that the use of antibiotics in genetically modified crops could lead to the development of antibiotic resistance.

  11. What are some of the ethical concerns about food biotechnology?
    (A) The use of genetic engineering to create new organisms
    (B) The potential for food biotechnology to harm the environment
    (C) The potential for food biotechnology to harm human health
    (D) All of the above

  12. Some of the ethical concerns about food biotechnology include the use of genetic engineering to create new organisms, the potential for food biotechnology to harm the environment, and the potential for food biotechnology to harm human health. Some people believe that it is unethical to create new organisms using genetic engineering. Others are concerned about the potential for food biotechnology to harm the environment. For example, if genetically modified crops cross-pollinate with wild plants, this could have negative consequences for the environment. Finally, some people are concerned about the potential for food biotechnology to harm human health. For example, there is a risk that genetically modified foods could contain allergens or toxins.

  13. What are some of the regulations governing food biotechnology?
    (A) The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
    (B) The European Food Safety Authority
    (C) The United States Food and Drug Administration
    (D) All of the above

  14. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international treaty that regulates the transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms. The European Food Safety Authority is an independent agency that assesses the safety of genetically modified foods in the European Union. The United States Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States government that regulates food safety.

  15. What is the future of food biotechnology?
    (A) It is difficult to say what the future of food biotechnology holds. However, it is likely that this technology will continue to be used to improve crop yields, make food more nutritious, and develop new food products.

  16. Food biotechnology is a rapidly developing field with the potential to revolutionize the way we produce and consume food. However, there are also concerns about the risks of this technology. It is important to weigh the potential benefits and risks of food biotechnology before making decisions about its use.

Exit mobile version