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WMSU
 INTRODUCTION
TO FOOD
PREPARATION
WMSU

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DEFINITION OF FOOD

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WHAT IS FOOD?
• What we eat and drink to help keep
us alive and well, to help us grow,
develop, work and play is called food.

• Food is anything edible. It includes all

foods and drinks acceptable for that
particular society, culture or religion.

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 WHAT IS FOOD?
• Food gives us a feeling of comfort and
satisfaction. Eating certain foods establishes
our identity. What we eat and how we eat
makes up our food habit. Most of our food
habits are learned in the home from our
parents. As we grow up, our experience and
learning help us to change some of these food
habits.

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WHAT IS FOOD
• FOOD is anything people eat to provide
nourishment. A legal definition of food states
that food is anything taken into the body by
mouth which includes drinks, bubble gum,
any substance or any ingredients needed in
the preparation of food. The legal definition
states that drugs and medicine although
also taken by mouth into the body are
excluded from the definition of food
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B. FUNCTIONS OF
FOOD

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B. FUNCTIONS OF FOOD
1. Nutrition Absorption.
Nutrients provide energy to our
bodies so we can grow and be
active and healthy. In other
words, the first function of food
is to keep us alive
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B. FUNCTIONS OF FOOD
2. Satisfying our Psychological
Needs. Since food provides tastes
and flavor, food serves a function to
affect one’s sense and behavior.
He gives an example of a chocolate
cake. It’s delicious but not a must
for the body to survive
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B. FUNCTIONS OF FOOD
3. Physical Adjustments. By
consuming nutrient-dense food, our
bodies can produce energy to
repair themselves. It can prevent
us from disease, give us a good
complexion and even longer
lifespan.
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B. FUNCTIONS OF FOOD
Food provides our bodies with what
they need to:
• stay alive, be active, move and work;
• build new cells and tissues for growth;
• stay healthy and heal themselves;
• prevent and fight infections

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B. FUNCTIONS OF FOOD
Food may also be categorized into the following:
First: Survival
Second: Hunger satisfaction
Third: No adverse effect on health
Fourth: Health and maintenance
Fifth: promotes better health and reduce the risk
of disease
Sixth: Food and medicine have common origin

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C. THE EVOLUTION
OF FOOD

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THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD
• Some of our knowledge of what early man ate
comes from archaeological studies of cave
drawings of food getting and preparation
activities.
• Primitive men collected their food from wild
animals and plants.
• They depended upon fruits, nuts, roots and
other plant foods, meat from animals and fish
from seas, lakes and rivers.

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THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD
• They were forced to spend their days and nights
in search of food.

• They roamed from place to place to correspond

the changing season, the appearance and
disappearance of various fruits and leaves, or
the migration and movement of game animals.
• They lived as hunters and gatherers. In this way
they lived till 10000 years ago in a few places
and 5000 years ago in most of the world
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THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD
• Gradually food gatherers learned to domesticate
plants and animals. One of the first great
changes which occurred in man’s food pattern
must have been when he learnt to use fire to
cook.

• They settled down, build shelters, and raised

plants and animals to provide food. The first crop
to be grown were wheat and barley from wild
grasses. Milk was probably the first food to be
extracted from animals. 16
THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD
• Man eats most of his food cooked and this is
one of the many characteristics which separate
him from other animals.

• The development of agricultural skills over the

last two centuries and consequent supply of a
sufficient amount of food, its preservation and
storage, resulted in the emergence of cities and
urban civilization

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THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD
• Today in our diet, traditional foods are
being replaced by fast foods. Traditional
foods are nutrient rich, does not contain
any artificial colouring, flavours or
preservatives. Whereas fast foods contain
all these things.
• In addition, food insecurity and nutrition
insecurity are challenging public health in
the present trend.
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D. IMPORTANCE OF
COOKING FOOD

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D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Cooking food properly is the only way of destroying
harmful bacteria as improperly cooked food can give
you food poisoning. To check whether foods have
been properly cooked, ensure that they are
steaming hot. Before eating cooked food,
especially meat it is important to cut with a small
knife in the middle and check that it is steaming hot in
the middle. You can use a cooking thermometer to
determine if the food has been cooked properly. For
most food, the heating temperature should be over
70C for at least two minutes in the middle of the
boiling food 20
D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Health. If food is not handled properly
while cooking, storage, and transportation,
it can be potentially dangerous and can
result in various diseases such as
sickness, bacterial infections, diarrhea,
worms, upsets, stomach bugs, headaches,
nausea and even death.

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D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Balanced diet. Cooking food
provides an opportunity to create well-
balanced meals that include protein,
carbohydrate, and fat as well as
essential vitamins and minerals
required by the body. While eating this
balanced diet, the body feel satisfied
and prevent late-night snacking.
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D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Better taste. Well cooked food,
include a high level of fat and salt that
ensure that the food taste better.
Cooking food at home ensures that
you control the number of oils and
salts on your food. Also, ensure that
salt and fat are well cooked to prevent
future problems.
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D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Food poisoning. Cooking food
properly helps to avoid food
poisoning. Most raw foods feature
food-borne pathogens such as
viruses, bacteria, parasites, and
viruses that can seriously harm and
kill a human being. Cooking ensures
that all the micro-organisms are
destroyed, which make food safe for
human consumption.
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D. IMPORTANCE OF COOKING
FOOD
• Production. Well cooked foods,
ensure better energy necessary for better
production. Foods that are not well cooked
can cause sickness and pain, which can
affect our production. Eating uncooked
food can also result in economic problems
as it leads to waste of time and money

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Why do we cook food?
1. Safety. Raw foods such as meat, fish, and
eggs, may harbor food poisoning bacteria,
which if consumed are likely to cause illness.
The optimum temperature for the
multiplication of most food poisoning bacteria
is between 5 - 63oC, whilst, at temperatures
over 70oC most bacteria are killed and below
5oC most food poisoning bacteria can only
multiply slowly or not at all.
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Why do we cook food?
.Most cooking methods if performed
properly will heat foods to over 70oC,
so applying such a temperature for a
carefully calculated time (along with
correct food preparation and storage
procedures) will prevent many food-
borne illnesses that would otherwise
manifest if the raw food was eaten.
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Why do we cook food?
2. Digestibility. The fundamental reason we
consume food is to extract the vital nutrients that
different foods contain to allow our bodies to
function properly. This is achieved by digestion,
where foods are broken down in the body into a
form that can be readily absorbed. However,
many of the nutrients contained in foods are not
readily accessible prior to cooking and thus,
cannot be easily digested by the body.

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Why do we cook food?
For example, the enzyme amylase (found in the
mouth and intestine) breaks down the
polysaccharide starch into its monomer glucose
constituents, which can easily be digested by the
body. Cooking foods containing starch (e.g.,
cereals and vegetables), prior to consumption
initiates the breakdown of the polysaccharide,
thus, aiding the action of amylase and the
consequent digestibility of the carbohydrate
component of the food.
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Why do we cook food?
3. Edibility. The desire to eat is primarily
driven by the body’s need for nutrition, with the
intake of essential nutrients being
indispensable for life. This fundamental reason
to eat is challenged by the psychological
needs of enjoyment and pleasure. Cooking
can cause changes in the colour, flavour and
texture of foods that allow us to create foods
that we derive pleasure from eating.
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Why do we cook food?
For example, roasting potatoes initiates
a series of changes that makes them
edible, as well as attractive in colour
and taste by generating a golden brown
colour, invoking a natural sweetness
and producing a crisp shell and a soft
internal texture

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E. FOOD
SANITATION AND
HYGIENE

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Why do we cook food?
Food sanitation is an assurance that food will
not cause harm to the consumer when it is
prepared and/or eaten according to its intended
use. To ensure food sanitation, all conditions and
measures are taken at all stages that the food
undergoes, production, processing, storage,
distribution and preparation of food so that when
finally eaten, the food does not represent any
appreciable risk to health. Food is safe when it is
free from hazards to health.
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Why do we cook food?
Food sanitation includes all practices involved in
protecting food from risk of contamination, harmful
bacteria, poisons and foreign bodies, preventing any
bacteria from multiplying to an extent which would result
in an illness of consumers; and destroying any harmful
bacteria in the food by thorough cooking or processing.
It is more than just cleanliness... The primary tenet of
food-service sanitation is absolute cleanliness. It begins
with personal hygiene, the safe handling of foods during
preparation, and clean utensils, equipment, appliances,
storage facilities, kitchen and dining room
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Why do we cook food?
The term ‘food hygiene’ refers particularly to
the practices that prevent microbial contamination
of food at all points along the chain from farm to
table. Food safety is a closely related but broader
concept that means food is free from all possible
contaminants and hazards. In practice both terms
may be used interchangeably. Food hygiene is
vital for creating and maintaining hygienic and
healthy conditions for the production and
consumption of the food that we eat.
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Why do we cook food?
The key principles for safe food preparation are outlined below.
➢ Choose foods that are not easily damaged by transportation,
accidents or by storage.
➢ Cook foods thoroughly, especially meat because this can help
to kill any microorganisms that might be present in the food.
➢ Eat cooked foods immediately after they are cooked, rather
than leave them out and eat later. Delays in eating cooked food
can lead to the growth and reproduction of microorganisms in
the cooked foodstuff.
➢ Store cooked food carefully at an appropriate temperature. It
should either be kept cold, ideally in a refrigerator, or it should be
kept hot.

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Why do we cook food?
The key principles for safe food preparation are outlined
below.

➢ If food must be reheated, be sure to reheat it thoroughly.

➢ Avoid contact between raw and cooked food.
➢ Wash hands properly before handling food and before
eating.
➢ Keep all kitchen surfaces and utensils meticulously clean.
➢ Protect food from animals including insects, rodents, and
other animals.
➢ Use safe water in food preparation and for washing fruits
and vegetables to be eaten raw
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