If you are concerned about eating healthy and try to avoid as many harmful chemicals in your food as possible, you are often told to avoid consuming processed food. However, besides that, how much do you actually know about processed food? Have you ever wondered what chemicals are in the processed food that people told you not to eat? Are they actually harmful? Or you should ask yourself a question that further question whatever you have ever believe in. What is processed food? How processed is really considered “processed”? Food is essentially important for your health and especially for your baby’s health so make sure everything you know about food for your baby is more than just a rumor that people told you.
Are all of our food processed?
‘Processed’ is a very broad term. If you study carefully and go deep into the manufacturing and production process, you will figure out that almost all of our food that we get from the grocery stores are processed one way or another. If that is the case, the harmful story about all processed food is actually just a myth. However, if there is no fire, there will not be any smoke. So even if it is a myth, the myth has to come from some truth somewhere. The truth is not all processed food is harmful and bad, but there are some that are full of harmful chemicals. There is a line between healthy and unhealthy processed. Sometimes, while processing, food is made to contain lots of preservatives, sodium and trans fat. That is unquestionably unhealthy. Yet, sometimes, food processing works in favor of human’s health. Food processing can improve the quality of products or eliminate and minimizing health threats that are naturally contained within the food such as bacteria. That is an especially helpful and healthy process for baby food since babies can be more sensitive to chemicals than adults.
Besides, processing food makes the food quality constant. Every time you buy something from the grocery store, you expect your food to look kind of the same and most importantly taste the same. And if you understand biology, you would know that is not always possible in nature, especially not in the way we as customers expect from our groceries stores. That is why we need machines to do the job. When having a machine to process food, every single piece will looks, smells and tastes the same, so everything in the same box does not taste different from each other. One of the most popular and well-used machine method that is currently using is food extrusion, done by food extruder machine.
Food Extrusion Process
Food extrusion is a complicated processed that can be used to make pasta, spaghetti, multiple forms of cereals and rice powder. If you do not know anything about the process of food extrusion and just stand by the machine to observe its working mode, all you can see would be a vague, half liquid dough that is forced through a tube-like machine. Then from that, shaped products that are still raw start falling out towards a conveyor belt for further packaging or container. A food extruder works on the power of a rotating force within a part called a barrel. The final step of the extruder ends with a die or a perforated piece shaping with the mixed ingredients or crushed into powder, depending on the final products. What you can observe from the outside of the machine is a very vague and ambiguous process. The actual process is much more complicated. However, it is not too complicated as to not being able to understand.
Step 1- Ingredients
The first step in food extrusion is preparing the raw ingredients. There are a few different forms of food extrusions hence come with different types of food extruder machines. Normally, the most common form of raw ingredients is inserted into the machine in a form of powder or flour. Some other times, with a twin screw extruder the raw food can come in the machine as whole shape, solid food and does not need to be pre-processed or crushed. With the twin screw, the raw ingredients can also be liquid, slurries or gasses. The raw materials then will be mixed with sugar, fat, water or other specific products like food dye or salt.
Step 2 – Cooking
After the mixing and input of raw ingredients, it is time for the cooking of the raw materials. The ingredients are cooked in the pre-conditioner area of the machine. The cooking process is often done by a hot steam steaming through the food. After cooked, the ingredients now turn into something called an extrudate. An extrudate is a mix of ingredients that is fully cooked to safe and healthy level.
Step 3 – Extrusion
As said earlier, there are two types of extruder machines: a traditional extruder and a twin screw extruder.
With the traditional extruder machine, there are 3 main pieces: a barrel, a screw, and a steam lock. Each of these plays crucially important roles in the whole extrusion process of food. The extrudate is pressed into a barrel of which contains a constantly rotating, well-fitted screw. Thanks to this barrel and screw, the extrudate is shaped into designed shapes and pushed down the stationary barrel. The blade at the end of the stationary barrel will cut the processed extrudate into smaller portions.
While this is happening in the barrel, at the same time, the cooking is still happening. The pressure within the barrel is building up. Because of the high pressure, the extrudate that is filling the barrel starts producing friction and heat, and by doing so, it can later leave the extruder as a product that is already cooled and dried. By emitting moisture and heat while still in the barrel, the final products of the extruder often change in properties like becoming dried or something increasing in sizes. These do not affect the chemicals combination of the products.
With the twin screw extruder, all of the processes is essentially the same with the traditional extruder. The difference is that instead of one fitted screw inside the barrel, there are two screws fitted, co-rotating screws mounted on splined shafts. The twin screws, instead of one, ensures transporting, compressing, mixing, cooking, shearing, heating, etc… thanks to its high level of flexibility. Because of that, the raw ingredients can come in the machine as solid and come out as a powder. That is why the twin screw extruder is the option when it comes producing baby food powder. Rice or cereals come in as seeds and solid particles and they come out as healthy, fully nutritious baby food powder.
Why extruded baby food power is not bad?
You can see, along with the process, there is no step that essentially requires preservatives or any dangerous and harmful products. The extrusion process only turns raw ingredients from one form to another. Also, there is almost no nutritional value that is lost during the process. Even when cooking, the method is steaming which is one of the best cooking methods to contain the nutrition inside the food. Rice are often extruded into powder and is often used as baby food powder. Rice powder is not only nutritional but also easy for babies to digest.
