Looking Back and Ahead at Food Science

As part of IFT’s 75th Anniversary celebration in 2014, the Scientific Editors of all IFT scientific journals are taking a look to the past and future to share their thoughts on how the various disciplines of food science have progressed and where they are going next.

In the December 2013 issue of the Journal of Food Science (JFS), Catherine Donnelly, the Journal’s Scientific Editor for the Food Microbiology and Safety section, perused the past seven decades of the Journal for topics of interest to food microbiologists. 

The very first volume of JFS, published in 1936, explored issues such as the microbiological examination of dried foods, and numbers and types of microorganisms in frozen vegetables and fruits. Many of these issues are as relevant today as they were then. However, Donnelly notes that the pathogens of concern have changed drastically as a result of production practices, handling, and globalization. “Where we once worried only about often mild to occasionally severe illness, we now unfortunately associate many pathogens with high mortality rates,” wrote Donnelly. 

In 1964, JFS had become comprehensive enough to warrant topical sections, and a microbiology section appeared for the first time in the Sept./Oct. issue. In the 1970s, research included infection routes of bacteria into chicken eggs. In 2012, this same topic appeared as researchers showed that E. coli O157:H7 facilitates penetration of Staphylococcus aureus into table eggs. 

There are certainly topics that continue to warrant further research as advancements in technology improve. As Donnelly states, “The tools we use to generate scientific results have greatly changed, and the tools of molecular biology are already transforming the way we understand the microbiological science of foods.” This is why scientific journals are vital to keeping on top of the latest research while promoting further discovery.

In the January 2014 issue of JFS, Herbert Stone, the Journal’s Scientific Editor for the Sensory and Food Quality section, explored how the topic of sensory science has been presented through the decades. 

Stone discovered that techniques discussed in those very first issues of the Journal are still very relevant today. For example, a manuscript in the first issue by Sylvia Cover discussed “A new subjective method of testing tenderness in meat—the paired-eating method.” Stone explains that this method is still used in sensory testing, currently referred to as the paired comparison. “Throughout its life as Food Research and then as the Journal of Food Science, one could always find publications in which sensory evaluation was a major part of the research findings,” wrote Stone.

When the Sensory Evaluation division formed in the late 1960s, it inquired about getting its own section in the Journal. IFT accepted the proposal, and as Stone remembers, “it was a great step forward for those of us functioning as sensory scientists.” 

Since 2000, the use of sensory evaluation has continued to grow along with the publication of new methods (Flash Descriptive Analysis) and more fundamental research on the use of electronic detection systems to minimize reliance on human behavior. 

In the March 2014 issue of the Journal of Food Science, Shyam S. Sablani, Scientific Editor of the Food Engineering and Physical Properties section, explored the food engineering research published in the journal. 

During the early 1900s, the development of canning by Prescott and Underwood at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) paved the way for food engineering research. In the early 20th century, research on thermal processing began its upswing, and was published mostly in National Canners Assoc. bulletins.

In an article published in the March 1938 issue of JFS, L.V. Burton stressed the need for trained food engineers and the development of the food engineering discipline, a branch of engineering related to the industrial production of food. In that same issue, Samuel Cate Prescott, the first President of IFT and Founder of Food Research (JFS since 1961), noted that early work in food chemistry and later, the bacteriology aspects of food preservation, led to food engineering research and teaching efforts at MIT. “Since then, tremendous progress has been made in the science and technology of thermal processing,” wrote Sablani.

One area that Sablani sees advancing is thermal and nonthermal food technologies. As he explains, in 2009 and 2010, the FDA approved three petitions to preserve low-acid foods using pressure-assisted thermal sterilization and microwave-assisted thermal sterilization systems. Also, investigation in nanotechnology may provide new ways of designing nanostructures for nutrient delivery and antimicrobial properties of food contact surfaces. 

To read these three articles and other 75th anniversary articles in JFS, please visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291750-3841.

More information can be found on the 75th anniversary at www.ift.org/75.

Kelly Hensel
Senior Digital Editor
[email protected]