Essentials of Food Science (Food Science Text Series)

by Vickie A. Vaclavik, Elizabeth W. Christian

Essentials of Food Science covers the basics of foods, food science, and food technology. The book is meant for the non-major intro course, whether taught in the food science or nutrition/dietetics department. In previous editions the book was organized around the USDA Food Pyramid which has been replaced. The revised pyramid will now be mentioned in appropriate chapters only. Other updates include new photos, website references, and culinary alerts for culinary and food preparation students. Two added topics include RFID (Radio frequency ID) tags, and trans fat disclosures. Includes updates on: food commodities, optimizing quality, laws, and food safety.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food Science

572 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1995

Reviews

[Katelin]

This book is really good for a textbook. I actually enjoyed reading it most of the time! :) It explains things really simply and in a way that I could understand.

[Jocelyn]

More of a rant than a review: The editing on this was so very bad. There were evident errors of fact not caught in editing, as well as usage errors. There were several instances of repeated text. There were many passages of text that had clearly been harvested from other sources and just dumped in at the end of a section in order to "update" it, with nothing connecting them to the information that'd come beforehand. I did get some value out of the reading, but it felt like a constant uphill battle. More than once I was tempted to start marking needed changes, but I never did, because as soon as I'd pass one where I'd think, "I'd fix that this way," I'd shortly encounter one that was such a disaster that editing on the page would have been hopeless.

[Bernie4444]

Ancient textbook.

This critter is fun to read and discover how they used to do that. It even contains black-and-white pictures of extinct machines.

This is not another cookbook as it contains the old food pyramid, and such interesting figures as figure 3-6 Sucrose chemical makeup, and figure 6-1 Structure of a wheat kernel.

Be sure not to read this just before you eat.

[Young Min]

Really appreciated how the author simplified it so the general public can pick it up too.

It's a good book to read if you are looking for general knowledge, you should look for another book if you want to get into the details :)