Erasmus Alet C - Culinary Nutrition: The Science and Practice of Healthy Cooking

People have integrated nutrition, food science and cooking since the beginning of timewithout even knowing it. The first foods and beverages were chosen to stay alive. Ancients ate meat and vegetation for sustenance and drank water for hydration. Little did they realize that the substances in meats and plants (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) are nutrients that are responsible for energy, strength and well-being.

Our ancestors ate foods rawmuch like some people do today. Once fire was discovered, they cooked and baked foods to improve their flavor. Little did they realize that heat breaks down some foods into their components (amino acids, fatty acids and sugars) for digestion and absorption.

Grains, such as rice and wheat, were chewed by early people for taste and nourishment. Little did they realize that saliva breaks down carbohydrates into more digestible substances and that cooking has similar effects. Once the benefits of cooking grains were discovered, this improved their taste and texture further.

Milk from goats, sheep and cows was used to produce a variety of dairy products, including fermented milk, cheese and yogurt. Yogurt was accidentally discovered when milk soured after a long journey inside a pouch that resembled a cows stomach. Little did shepherds realize that substances called enzymes are responsible for this transformationand are still used today.

As time went on, raw ingredients changed in appearance, character, form and naturethanks to nutrition, food science and the culinary arts. Meats, fowl and fish were sliced, chopped and ground into fillets, stews, patties, sausages and forms otherwise previously unknown. Grains were pulverized into flours and made into flat and leavened breads with the help of yeast and starters.

Foods functioned for enjoyment and as curatives. Vegetables and fruits, originally known for their medicinal qualities, were added to meat-based soups and stews and savory breads and transformed into an array of tasty side dishes. Herbs and spices, initially used for healing, enhanced recipes of all kinds. Fats and oils, valued for richness, also supplied satiety. Alcoholic beverages, frequently used in health and disease, etched their place in gastronomy.

Just like hundreds of years ago, nutrition, food science and the culinary arts are still inescapably linked. Advances in nutrition, food science and the culinary arts are now multifaceted, rapidly paced and transformational.

People no longer have to hunt and forage to meet their nutritional needs. Food science has created hearty, resistant foods that are available year-round from worldwide sources. The culinary arts have shaped foods into gustatory delights. And many foods and beverages are now enriched or fortified with nutrients that hardly resemble what our ancestors consumed or Mother Nature intended.

As a result, nutrition, food science and culinary professionals may find it harder than ever to sort out the good from the bad, the wrong from the right, and the healthy from the not-so-healthy. This is why it is so important to learn about nutrition, food science and the culinary arts in an interdisciplinary approach like the one this book presents.