Water in Cooking Processes

1.0 Introduction:
Water can be observed as being a major component of many foods as well as one of the more important groups of nutrients worldwide. This is primarily due to the influences water has on texture, appearance and the taste of food.

Nutritionally, water helps to maintain body temperature and plays a role in transportation of nutrients and wastes providing the solution for hundreds of chemical reactions. Water also plays a role in sanitation in food practices as well as food preservation and therefore it is essential for the food industry (Kemmer N, F.,1988). In dried foods, water has a predominant role in the physical and chemical properties as well as the mechanisms that control their deterioration. As a result of this, water is necessary for life due to its high volatility at normal conditions of food processing and storage and therefore it is ubiquitous in the atmosphere (Ward, 2002)

This report will analyse and scope the role of water in food processing operations and the processes linked to water. The report will then exemplify some food practices and demonstrate the function of water in industries.

2.0 Chemical structure of water:
One of the most abundant chemicals worldwide is water. Its chemical formula (H20) is composed of two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen bonded together covalently, which is shown below (Kemmer N, F,1988).

Water has a slightly negative and positive end making it able to interact with itself and form highly organised intermolecular networks. It is able to do so due to the forces between the negative and positive ends of each water molecule, resulting in a force that allows the molecules to form a hydrogen bond. Hydrogen bonding is a type of weak electrostatic attraction between both positive and negative ends. Therefore because every water molecule can form a Hydrogen bond, it is easy to develop an elaborate network of molecules (Brown, LeMay & Bursten, 2006).

Water is evaluated to being a very... [continues]

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