'New' or 'Compositionally Altered' grocery store products Essay

'New' or 'Compositionally Altered' grocery store products - Essay Example The researcher of this essay aims to pay special attention on some kinds of compositionally altered foods. Consider as an example, low calorie yoghurt. The manufacturer of this product uses a special process to produce this food item. Low calorie yoghurt is essentially low in sugar (achieved by substituting a low calorie sweetener like aspartame or saccharin instead of sugar), and it is almost lactose free. By reducing lactose to less than 1% through ultra-filtration and enzymatic hydrolysis, the manufacturer is able to reduce 60 to 70 calories from the product. The target consumer includes dieters and because of almost nil lactose in the finished product, lactose intolerant people as well. When stored under recommended temperatures and under conventional refrigeration, the product has a shelf life of about 30 days which is about the same as regular yoghurt. Low calorie yoghurts can be manufactured in the traditional style, the Swiss style or even with fruit mixed in. Artificial crea m is another compositionally altered food. It is merely imitation cream and is made entirely from non-dairy fats like vegetable oil and not butter fat although it contains emulsifiers like glycerides and phosphatides, and thickening agents like gum and starch. It contains no butyric acid but sweeteners or sugar could be added to sweeten the whip. This kind of cream has generally been accepted well by the average consumer because it is cheaper than real cream, has no dairy fat and most importantly has a longer shelf life as compared to real cream. Dieters love it. It appeases my conscience to use this versus full fat cream, although I am uncomfortable with the vegetable oil. Also, artificial cream is not a good replacement for real cream in all cases; it can become runny and quite unfit as a topping. A low fat cheese product, another example of altered food, is made by mixing milk with non-fat dry milk solids, a stabilizer like carrageenan and a lactic acid provider. This creates a cheese formulation solution to which a clotting enzyme like rennet is added. The solution is then coagulated to form a curd in a whey solution. The curd is then separated from the whey and ripened to form a low fat cheese product. The product is suitable for dieters and in some cases even for convalescing patients. It has a long shelf life - longer than standard cheese and to me tastes rather nice. Decaffeinated coffee is a favorite of a large segment of the population, especially those that drink multiple cups of coffee a day and believe that caffeine is harmful to their health. People with hypertension who have been advised to avoid caffeine also typically opt for this kind of coffee versus the regular one. Coffee can be decaffeinated in many ways but the steps are the same in all of them. The beans are first soaked in water to dissolve the caffeine. Next, the caffeine is extracted using a solvent or activated carbon like methylene chloride or ethyl acetate both of which have low boiling points.Finally the beans are re-soaked in the decaffeinated water so that they can reabsorb the flavor that was lost in the initial extraction.I am not fond of decaffeinated coffee at all and prefer to sip the regular one. The flavor of decaf coffee tastes poor to me and it is a fact that the decaffeination process alters both the flavor and aroma of the coffee beans. The shelf life of vacuum -packed roasted and ground coffee is