Whenever I introduce myself as a meals technologist, the overall response is, “Oh, so that your paintings at a resort?” It hurts to look that as Indians, coming from a land rich in soil and assets, we are ignorant approximately the potentialities of any such diverse area. My adventure in this area started with a B.Tech direction in Food Technology that combines engineering with microbiology.
Being an especially new location, the majority joined the path looking ahead to it to be less complicated to pursue than other courses. However, we college students had our noses to the grindstone via semesters of merely mechanical subjects, which include the concept of machines, warmth and mass transfer, refrigeration and cold chain, and unit operations in food processing. In addition to theory training, we had been given fingers-on revel in dealing with commercial machines along with fermentation tanks, orifice and venturi meters, ribbon blenders, spray driers, and so forth in a laboratory set-up. I selected to foremost in Food Process Equipment and Design. With this training, I could layout an automatic multipurpose peeler that could peel spherical formed culmination and vegetables like apples and beetroot more efficiently, with much less wastage.
Despite providing a huge spectrum of possibilities, our instructors rarely appeared privy to the scope of food technology. Girls have been generally counseled to pursue exceptional warranty jobs which concerned begin-to-quit first-rate assessments of merchandise. On the opposite hand, boys have been advocated to pursue a profession in meal enterprise audits. Unlike the excellent guarantee sphere, these jobs involve common tours and inconsistent timings and therefore seemed to be mistaken for women.
GIRLS WERE ADVISED TO PURSUE QUALITY ASSURANCE JOBS, WHICH INVOLVED START-TO-END QUALITY CHECKS OF PRODUCTS. ON THE OTHER HAND, BOYS WERE ENCOURAGED TO PURSUE A CAREER IN FOOD INDUSTRY AUDITS.
Nevertheless, engaging in audits of the meals industry has become most attractive to me. To do it, one desires to preserve in par with the situation, the science behind every manner, and any new rules which can be drafted or released via the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). It is an area from which you’ll be able to, without problems, department out into the metals industry’s specific sectors. It can expose one to all factors of its functioning, from farm to fork. Not buckling below the discouragement I acquired (humans informed me it became a tough area for women to attain achievement), I decided to pursue this profession direction after graduation.
It changed simultaneously as I changed into attending numerous job interviews that I stumbled upon the start-up enterprise called Grow Fit. The company is led by Vinay Bharadwaj, a neurosurgeon with an alternative take on the food enterprise. He recommends to his sufferers a ketogenic food regimen or the high fat-protein food plan for weight loss.
Where does the food era suit in within all this? It gives us techniques to cope with the converting meals demands of society. The book Accelerating New Food Product Design and Development by using Beckley et al. discusses the transition of human diets from our ancestors’ hunter-gatherer diets to the more famous keto weight-reduction plan of the modern-day instances with the assist of food generation. The food plan of hunter-gatherers turned into protein-fat wealthy and released energy slowly. But as generation superior, especially during the World Wars I and II, preserving food became easier, and food industries grew to become in the direction of advertising storable carbohydrate-rich food to serve our instant pangs of starvation. But unlike food excessive in fat and proteins, an excessive-carb weight loss plan releases energy a good deal quicker, resulting in fluctuating energy stages via the day.
Food rich in sugar and carbohydrates is less complicated to maintain as there may be less scaling up the loss. Protein-fats meals are simply the other. Developing a product high in protein and low in carbohydrates might, therefore, contain the synergism of each science and era.
During my time at Grow Fit, we developed a new keto-weight loss plan product, a smoothie mix designed to aid weight loss. We introduced our product chicory root extracts, also known as inulin, which functions as a prebiotic. But by using doing so, we observed inulin absorbed water and, in flip, decreased the shelf life of the product. We now had to layout a packaging that could make bigger its shelf lifestyles. We had to cater to each food aspect while keeping in thoughts certain questions: What are the systems, residences, and shelf-lives of the proteins and fats used? What is the most inexpensive and maximum efficient manner to manner it? Would the product require any packaging? Would the packaging react with the product? What could FSSAI/CODEX guidelines be wished?
UNLIKE THE FIELD OF QUALITY ASSURANCE, FOOD AUDITING JOBS INVOLVE FREQUENT TRAVEL AND INCONSISTENT TIMINGS, AND HENCE PERCEIVED TO BE UNSUITABLE FOR GIRLS.
For a start-up organization like Grow Fit, manufacturing a product that was excessive in proteins and fats, with an omega-6 and omega-3 ratio of 4:1, and sourcing extracts that function as carb-blockers lessen insulin spikes changed into a big venture. We commenced out via formulating merchandise that had the least effect on sugar tiers inside the human frame. By accomplishing glucometer checks – a take a look at for sugar stages in the blood – we were able to determine the right mixture of proteins and fats required to maintain hunger stages in taking a look at.
Since our merchandise is oriented closer to weight loss and for clients with specific necessities, we had to ensure that every component goes into every packet in a distinctive ratio. In this situation, the purpose becomes to make a healthful smoothie with the level of sweetness, color, consistency, and ratio of our useful elements being consistent in every bottle. The very last task changed to broaden a flavor and texture appropriate to the purchasers by using natural sweeteners and emulsifiers. To nail the proper stability, we performed rigorous rounds of olfactory node tests (that entails a digital nose like a tool to detect odors) and viscometric tests (that assist measure the consistency of a liquid using an instrument known as the viscometer). Once the product’s research and development method became tested and standardized, we commenced concentrating our efforts on upscaling or increasing manufacturing to a larger scale.
Development and manufacturing products such as this smoothie require the talents of a trained food technologist. Ratios of ingredients are crucial in eating regimen protocols, and these frequently get deviated while inside the palms of untrained experts. For instance, our high-fats product required a specialized grinder known as a cone-ball grinder, which bests a skilled character can handle. Similarly, a food technologist has excellent expertise in approximately one of a kind of meals and can pair them up with mechanisms or strategies that reduce manual labor.
Whether producing a ketogenic product or draft beer, it’s miles of technology and technology that bring a product together. New meal product designs are constantly generated, but keeping the product exceptional consistent is a project. Take the case of Kombucha or tea mushroom, a diffusion of fermented, lightly bubbling sweetened black or green tea with intended fitness advantages. It is a 1000000000-greenback enterprise within the U.S.A. Kombucha has had gradual access within the Indian market because of the lack of technical expertise in producing a constant product without mildew growth or generation of higher doses of the deadly alcohol ‘methanol’ that gets fashioned through fermentation manner when produced in massive quantities.
From my enjoy, I trust the radical food begin-up subculture is an excellent beginning for a B.Tech Food Technology graduate because it facilitates one to find out their interests. It helped me get down and grimy with fermentation, new food product layout, sourcing or producing novel components, food device designing, or consultations to call some. The opportunities to analyze are endless and pretty interlinked, much like the food internet.
