Food Science and Nutrition

By Kenneth Carpenter
2026

Description

Food Science and Nutrition discusses the integral relationship between the food and nutritional sciences, bringing together outstanding and comprehensive relationship. The book contains detail scientific developments in the broad areas of food science and nutrition, providing those in academia and industry with the latest information on emerging research in these constantly evolving sciences. The provision of food and beverages is one of the oldest services associated with the hospitality industry. The food services industry has evolved and has come full circle. The need for providing nutritious meals for balanced overall development has acquired greater significance in the past few decades. Eating out is no longer the occasional special event to be celebrated where people indulge. It has become a way of life. We are forced to eat out or order take-away meals due to work patterns, education, or social commitments. The number of people depending on food service providers for meeting their daily nutritional requirement is increasing at a rapid pace, making it necessary for professionals in the hospitality sector to be able to offer healthy choices on the menu to the customers. Food science and nutrition has gained added significance with an increase in the number of lifestyle related diseases, such as high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart diseases, diabetes mellitus, and obesity. Food manufacturers are introducing new products keeping these diseases in mind. A need was felt for a book designed specially for students in hospitality-related courses that addresses all the basic issues of food science and nutrition. This book is written for the undergraduate students. The present book is being humbly offered to satisfy the demand for better, exhaustive and authoritative coverage on various aspects of food and nutrition. The aim of this text book is to provide full details and the basic knowledge of the subject in the most effective and positive manner. The knowledge level of the students in the subject is always given top priority and hence the complicated concepts are simplified.

About Author

Kenneth Carpenter is an eminent British nutrition scientist focused on some of the key nutrition issues of the time, starting with B vitamins, including niacin, folic acid and riboflavin, and moving on to the influence of processing and storage on protein quality. He pioneered the notion of nutrient bioavailability, and the concept that a nutrient can be present in a foodstuff, as measured analytically, but is not absorbed and utilised because it is present in a non-digestible bound form. His research led to the identification of bound niacin in maize and explained why pellagra was common in most but not all maize eating populations. He identified bound lysine in certain highprotein animal foods and explained why chickens and pigs fed rations based on 'high-lysine' fishmeals, meat meals or milk powder did not grow as well as would be expected. He attended Merchant Taylors' school before going up to the University of Cambridge to read natural sciences and then undertake a Ph.D. at the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory. Carpenter was an adherent to the history of ideas in nutrition. Avoiding hagiography and hindsight, he placed himself in the shoes of naval surgeons, explorers, biochemists, physiologists, medical doctors, and bureaucrats, interpreting their contemporary landscape. Lack of a particular nutrient or nutrients has had tremendous social, military, and economic consequences over the centuries. Carpenter provided ample illustrations of how correct solutions to a particular nutrient deficiency would be recognized and then subsequently discarded, or ignored by authorities, or sometimes even abandoned by the very scientists who identified the correct nutrient and cure.

Table of Content

Preface
1. THE VERY BASICS OF HUMANS AND THE WORLD WE INHABIT
2. HOW OUR BODY WORKS
3. THE NATURE OF FOOD
4. CARBOHYDRATES ARE OUR MOST BASIC FUEL SOURCE
5. FATS AND CHOLESTEROL ARE NOT ALL BAD
6. PROTEINS ARE THE BASIS OF OUR STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
7. WATER IS THE BASIS OF OUR BODY
8. METABOLISM, BODY WEIGHT AND COMPOSITION, AND WEIGHT
9. VITAMINS ARE VITAL MOLECULES IN FOOD
10. THE MINERALS OF OUR BODY
11. EXERCISE AND SPORTS NUTRITION
12. NUTRITION THROUGHOUT LIFE
Bibliography
Index