Unit 2. Food processing

I. Reading and Speaking Practice Section

1. Guess the meaning of the following international words:

substance, material, proteins, vitamins, minerals, energy, industry, texture, ingredients, fermentation, combination, gastronomy, popular, ethnic, style, coffee.

2. Match the English names of the trees with their Russian equivalents:

substance белки

nutritional брожение

support приготовление

essential вещество

carbohydrates разновидность

fats пищевая промышленность

proteins рецепт

supply жиры

food industry ценный

fermentation снабжать

taste питательный

type углеводы

recipe вкус

cooking поддерживать

3. Discuss in small groups the following points (see Appendix 1 on p.69 ):

- names of foodstuffs in English you can remember;

- what groups of food we can distinguish;

- how we can obtain our food (hunting, fishing, etc.);

- what you know about food processing (e.g. bread baking).

Text a Food

Read the text and complete the table.

Food is any substance or materials eaten or drunk to provide nutritional support for the body or for pleasure. It usually consists of plant or animal origin, that contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals.

Historically people obtained food from hunting and gathering, farming and fishing known as agriculture. Today most of the food consumed by the world population is supplied by the food industry. The food industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that together supply much of the food consumed by the world population.

Food processing is the methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food for human consumption. Food processing takes clean, harvested or slaughtered and butchered components and uses them to produce marketable food products. There are several different ways in which food can be produced.

While many foods can be eaten raw, many foods undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, texture or flavor. At the simplest level this may involve washing, cutting, trimming or adding other foods or ingredients such as spices. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling, fermentation or combination with other food. In a home most food preparation takes place in a kitchen. Some preparation is done to enhance the taste or aesthetic appeal; other preparation may help to preserve the food. A meal is made up of food which is prepared to be eaten at a specific time and place.

Many cultures have a recognizable cuisine, a specific set of cooking traditions using various spices or combinations of flavors unique to that culture that evolves over time. Other differences include preferences (hot or cold, spicy etc.), and practices the study of which is known as gastronomy. Some popular types of ethnic foods include Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, American, Thai and Indian.

Certain peoples have certain food taboos, that is, foods which are not eaten usually because of religious or ethic laws. Many tribes in Africa and America do not eat pork, Hindus do not eat beef. The Chinese by tradition have not been milk-drinkers, and their recipes for cooking have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Chinese eat soybeans, poultry and fish, pickles and drink green tea. And they don't like coffee and cocoa, cream and butter. They serve tea at the beginning of a meal where as Englishmen end the meal with black coffee. So tastes in food differ and we must respect local traditions in food and style of cooking.

Yet what you eat also impacts the world around you and touches us all. The food we eat influences the environment around us, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fields we run on.

(http://en.wikipedia.org)

products	tastes	processes and stages of cooking

Practice 1. Summarise the text by listing:

- food preparation methods and techniques;

- national and traditional varieties of cooking.

Practice 2. Re-read the text to find out which of its paragraph deals with:

- different ways of cooking;

- the definition of the word “cuisine”;

- peculiarities of ethnic foods.

Practice 3. Re-read the text again to find out which of the following statements are true and which are false.

1. Carbohydrates are the most important nutrients found in our food.

2. The food industry combines various activities.

3. People do not eat raw food.

4. Ethnic foods include various taboos according to the national traditions.

5. Our meals do not concern the environment.

Practice 4. The answers to the following questions are the summary of the text. Answer these questions and give the summary of the text.

1. How can you define “food”?

2. How can it be obtained?

3. Is there any difference between food industry and food processing?

4. What ways of preparing (or cooking) food do you know?

5. What are the reasons for cuisine peculiarities?

6. Do the things we eat impact the world around us?

Practice 5. Does this text give you sufficient information about food processing? What questions would you like to ask the author of the text?

Text B