Technological processing has a significant impact on the constituents of food, influencing their structure, nutritional profile, sensory qualities, and safety. For example, how different processes affect various food components:

Proteins

• Heat Treatment (e.g., pasteurization, sterilization, cooking): Heat denatures proteins, unfolding their structure and potentially making them more digestible. However, excessive heat can lead to the formation of undesirable compounds like heterocyclic amines or reduce protein digestibility.
• Mechanical Processing (e.g., extrusion, milling): This can modify protein structure, enhancing or reducing their functionality (e.g., solubility, gelation). For example, extrusion can improve the textural properties of plant proteins for meat analogs.
• Enzymatic Processing: It targets specific protein bonds to create hydrolysates or peptides, improving digestibility and bioavailability and sometimes imparting specific functionalities such as antioxidant or antihypertensive properties.

Carbohydrates

• Thermal processes (e.g., baking, boiling, drying): These can lead to the gelatinization of starch, making it easier to digest. However, high temperatures can cause the Maillard reaction between reducing sugars and amino acids, producing flavor compounds but potentially forming harmful compounds like acrylamide.
• Fermentation: This can break down complex carbohydrates (e.g., starches, fibers) into simpler sugars or acids, improving digestibility and adding beneficial microorganisms (e.g., lactic acid bacteria) to the food matrix.
• Extrusion and Hydrolysis: These processes can break down starches into simpler sugars, affecting the glycemic index and textural properties of food products.

Lipids

• Heat Treatment: High temperatures can degrade unsaturated fatty acids, leading to lipid oxidation and the formation of off-flavors, toxic compounds (e.g., trans fats), and a reduction in nutritional value. Antioxidants (e.g., tocopherols) may be added during processing to mitigate these effects.
• Homogenization: This process stabilizes fat droplets in emulsions (e.g., milk), preventing separation and improving the texture of the product.
• Enzymatic Modification (e.g., lipase): It can alter the fatty acid composition, improving nutritional quality or creating specific types of lipids for functional or nutritional purposes.

Vitamins

• Heat and Light Exposure: Many vitamins, particularly water-soluble ones like vitamin C and B vitamins, are sensitive to heat and light. Processes like pasteurization, boiling, or even prolonged storage can degrade these vitamins.
• Fortification: Technological processing enables the addition of vitamins to enhance nutritional profiles, such as in fortified cereals or beverages.
• Encapsulation: Protects sensitive vitamins from degradation during processing and storage, allowing for controlled release in the digestive system.

Minerals

• Processing Effects (e.g., milling, washing): These can reduce the mineral content, particularly in whole grains, as minerals are often concentrated in the bran or outer layers. For instance, white flour has a lower mineral content compared to whole grain flour.
• Fortification and Mineralization: Processing allows the addition of minerals (e.g., calcium in fortified juices) to address dietary deficiencies.

Dietary Fiber

• Thermal Processing: Heat can break down the structure of dietary fibers, altering their solubility and water-holding capacity. For example, cooking vegetables can soften the fiber, making it easier to digest.
• Milling and Extrusion: These processes can alter the physical properties of fibers, such as particle size, affecting their impact on digestion and gut health.

Technological processing in food constituents has significance impact, because it alter the structural properties of food matrices, enhancing the release and absorption of bioactive components in the human body and significantly improved bioavailability in human health.

Different food processing technologies have numerous impact on various foods such as proximate composition,functional and bioactive components, volatile and falvor compounds, structural, nutritional and finally on quality attributes of the product or ingredient. Ir varies from processing methodology to methodology and from product to product.