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Last-modified: 2004/05/02

FAQ - SCI.BIO.FOOD.SCIENCE Frequently-Asked Questions (1 of 3)

On behalf of Rachel Zemser and J. Ralph Blanchfield, I welcome you to
sci.bio.food-science.

You are all encouraged to contact one of us if you have suggestions
additions, or other 'major' questions we haven't thought of. Our names
and email addresses are:

Rachel Zemser, creator of the newsgroup sci.bio.food-science
    

J. Ralph Blanchfield, Food Science, Food Technology & Food Law Consultant,
    Chair, IFST Member Relations & Services Committee and Web Editor,
    IFST Web on the WWW 

Paul King, Creator and Maintainer of the List of Common Abbreviations
    

For a glossary of scientific, marketing, industry, technical and legal
terms of relevance to food science, see FAQ 2 of 3. For a list of common
questions and answers about food and food science, see FAQ 3 of 3.

 - Paul King

FAQ  1/3- SCI.BIO.FOOD-SCIENCE Frequently-Asked Questions
*******************************************************************************
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY


INTRODUCTION

The following documents have been brought to you by:

Rachel  Zemser,  creator of the newsgroup sci.bio.food-science.
    

J  Ralph Blanchfield,
    Food Science, Food Technology & Food  Law Consultant, Chair, IFST
    Member Relations & Services Committee and Web Editor, IFST Web on
    the WWW 

Paul King, Creator and Maintainer of the List of Common
    Abbreviations 

    This document has been created to answer questions about Food
Science and the newsgroup sci.bio.food-science. This  document
contains five Parts, formatted in three Files.

FILE 1/3
         I.   Guidelines for posting in sci.bio.food-science
         II.  A list of Food Science related Web Sites
         III. A list of common abbreviations

FILE 2/3
         IV.  Food  Science Definitions and Interpretations that have
              been prepared by a joint working  group of the Institute
              of Food Science and Technology (IFST) and the UK Association
              of Public Analysts (APA)

FILE 3/3
         V.  Frequently  Asked  Questions About Food Science and Technology
             that  have  been prepared by the Institute of Food Science &
             Technology (IFST), the professional qualifying body for food
             scientists and technologists; a UK-based body with
             international interests.
             

I. GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR POSTING IN SCI.BIO.FOOD-SCIENCE

     The goals of this newsgroup are:

     1. To discuss topics and issues related to food chemistry,
food microbiology, food engineering/processing, food biotechnology,
dairy science, agriculture, fermentation, nutrition, toxicology,
agribusiness, sensory science, and food safety.

     2. To share experimental methods and improved teaching
techniques.

     3. To announce job vacancies for food science and technology
professionals in all relevant fields.

     4. To provide an opportunity for food science and technology
professionals to post resumes of up to 500 words.

     5. To make available, and answer questions about, abstracts
of papers for publication or presentations.

     6. To announce professional meetings, conferences, courses,
events, etc.,  world wide

     7. To discuss general areas of interest inside food science
and technology.

     8.  Postings are welcome from food science and technology
professionals, as well as from any others seeking advice or
information on  these subjects. No posting may offer for sale or hire,
or request payment for, goods, services or information

     Please make sure that your post is related to the above goals
of  the newsgroup. There are lots of other food related newsgroups and
some of them may be better for your post. Some of these groups are:

    sci.med.nutrition,      rec.food.preserving,      rec.food.cooking,
    rec.food.recipes,       alt.food.wine,            alt.food.fat-free,
    rec.food-veg,           rec.food.veg.cooking,     alt.support.diet

II. A LIST OF FOOD SCIENCE RELATED WEB SITES

         The following is a list of food science related web sites. Some
    of these may be of interest to food scientists reading this group.

         This list has been created in an effort to bring food scientists
    closer together on the internet. If you find a site that is not
    mentioned in this list please email Paul King at
     or Ralph Blanchfield at
    

1.ACADEMIC SITES -

         There are many food science/edu web pages. This list does not
    include every one. However, from these sites, one can link to many
    more food science/academic related sites. This list will be updated
    on a regular basis. Though the list is alphebetized, the words
    'University' or 'University of' will be ignored in the
    alphabetisation.

         In addition, the web sites are sorted by country, as far as 1)
    the available information, and 2) the country code of the web site
    will allow. This is in light of the fact that the number of websites
    suggested by our subscribers have grown considerably over the past
    while, and some logical ordering is necessary. If your mailer, news
    reader or text viewer can do a case-sensitive string search, you will
    find that the spellings of the countries are capitalised.

                               AUSTRAILIA
Queensland University:        

                                 AUSTRIA
Graz Univ of Technology, Div of Fd Chem:  

                                 CANADA
Acadia University:             
University of Alberta:         
University of Guelph:          
University of Manitoba:  
Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Aquaculture program:
                               
MUN Marine Institute:          
Dalhousie University Fd Sci and Tech (Formerly TUNS):
                               

                                 DENMARK
Royal Vetarinary and Agricultural University:    

                                 FINLAND
University of Helsinki:         

                                 GERMANY
University of Hohenheim:

                                  ITALY
Bologna University:             
University of Milan:      

                                 JAMAICA
West Indies University:    

                        THE NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND)
Wageningen Agricultural University:              

                                  SPAIN
Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology:    

                                  SWEDEN
Lund University (Fd Eng):      

                                SWITZERLAND
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich):    

                              UNITED KINGDOM
University of Huddersfield:   
             
University of Leeds:           
University of Leeds FS         
Manchester Metropolitan University:
                               
University of Nottingham:
                   
Oxford Brookes University:
                        
University of Reading:         
University of Strathclyde: 
                    
University of Surrey:          

                              UNITED STATES
Arizona University:            
University of California at Davis:           
University of Colorado Agricultural List:
                  
Cornell University:            
University of Delaware:
               
University of Florida:   
University of Houston:         
University of Illinois:        
Kansas State University:       
University of Kentucky:
                      
University of Minnesota:       
Mississippi State University:  
Mississippi State University College of Agriculture and Home Economics:
                               
Oklahoma State Animal Sciences):               
Ohio State University:         
Oregon State University:       
Purdue University:             
Rutgers University:            
Texas A&M FS and Engineering:  
Texas A&M Meat Science:        
University of Wisconsin:       
Virginia Tech:                 
Washington State University:   
Wayne State University:        


2.GENERAL WEB SITES RELATING TO FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:

        ACCESSING THIS FAQ THRU THE WEB VIA DEJANEWS.COM OR
    SUNSITE.ORG.UK: By entering the complete name of this newsgroup on
    a web search form at DejaNews , you may access
    all past postings in this (or any) newsgroup. The listings of the
    postings will be in reverse chronological order. Where you see the su
    bject line of this FAQ, follow that link, and the result is a copy of
    our FAQ, but with a differnce: All of the web links mentioned in FAQ
    1/1 become LIVE web links. Thus, if you access this FAQ posting via
    DejaNews, all of the links mentioned below becom e live links which
    can be followed to academic, commercial, or government sites
    worldwide. The same is true on any other posting where a user may
    make a passing mention of a web site.

         Better still, Peter Sahlin  reported
    finding a html'ed copy of our FAQ through
    http://www.jazzie.com/ii/internet/faqs.html. It's exact location is
    at

    .

    It is better than DejaNews in that the FAQ is in the three parts that
    we had intended; you need not press any icons for the next screenful
    of text; and any mentioned links are still live, meaning you can use
    their copy of our FAQ on Netscape to jump to an y site on the
    internet that we have listed. This service is provided to us via the
    University of Oxford. DejaNews can still be useful to look at past
    postings.

         This list will also be updated from time to time.

Agriculture and Agri-Food:     
American Association of Cereal Chemists:        
ASEAN Fisheries Post-Harvest Technology Information Network, Singapore:
                               
Australian Institute of Food Science & Technology (AIFST):
                               
Beer Info Source:              
Burnaby Cook-Chill Production Center:
Canadian Org. of Nutritional Ed:                    
CanWine                        
Center For Disease Control:    
Center for Science in the Public Interest:           
Chemistry & Industry Magazine: 
Code of Federal Regulations:
                   
Codex Alimentarus (FAO):
          
Consumer Information Center:   
Deja News Website:             
Ed Blonz's FS site list:       
FDA:                           
Federal Trade Commission (USA):
Food and Nutrition Information Center:        
Food Chemical News Homepage:   
Food Composition Tables:       
"Food Dude" browser (USA):     
Food Law Page(IFT):
Foodnet (Canada):              
Functional Foods For Health:   
USFDA HACCP Page:              
IFIC Foundation:               
Integrated Crop Management:    
Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute:
                               
International Food Data Systems Project (FAO):
                               
Institute of Food Research:    
Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST):
                               
Institute of Food Technologists (IFT):                   
International Food Information Council:
                               
Internet Resources for FS & Technology CSIRO, Australia:
                               
Leatherhead Food Research Association:          
Maize Genome Database:         
Morbidity and Mortality Reports:                   
National Food Safety Database:
National Council Against Health Fraud:                
New Zealand Institute for Crop and Food Research:   
Nutrient Database:             
Post-Harvest Horticultural Links (FS and Food Safety):
                               
sci.bio.food-science FAQ on HTML:
        
Society of Chemical Industry   
SoyBean Site, the Illinois Soybean Association:       
Soybeans: Strategic Tools and Resources:
                                      
Tufts University Nutrition Navigator:           
University of California at Davis - R. Paul Singh's Food Engineering Site:
                               
University of California at Davis - Seafood Network Information Centre:
                               
USDA Home Page:                
USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center:   
USDA Food Composition Tables:
    
USDA Nutrient Values of Foods:
                       
US National Center for Health Statistics:       
Veggies Unite!                 
Wild Blueberries:              
Wine:                          

3.FOOD COMPANIES

Campbell Soup Company:         
Dole 5 A Day                   
Frito-Lay                      
Gerber Baby food:              
Hershey:                       
Kellogs:                       
Mars' M&Ms Homepage            
McCormick and Co.              
Monsanto:                      
Nabisco:                       
Quaker Oats:                   
The Snack food Association:    
NutraSweet:                    


 * If anyone knows of any other web sites, email: Paul King at
    or Ralph Blanchfield at
   

4. FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY RELATED MAILING LISTS-

         BEEF-L: A mailing list and discussion group for beef specialists
    in university, government and commercial activities.
                                         

         CANWINE: is an unmoderated mail discussion group formed to look
    at the whole spectrum of Canadian wines and the Canadian wine
    industry. To subscribe to CANWINE, send the message (no subject
    line): subscribe canwine to:           

         CHAPHALL: The Chappel-Hall Books mailing list. Chappell-Hall is
    a publishing company that publishes food science books, among others.
    Send an email with the message "subscribe chaphall-fst [your email
    address]" to:                      
    example: subscribe chaphall-fst pking@idirect.com

         DNH-PILOT The Diet, Nutrition and Health project mailing list
    covers sociology, food science and technology, agricultural economics
    and psychology. Researchers in academic institutions across the
    European Union, hopefully together with industrial partners and with
    some external funding, are involved. To subscribe send email to:
                                  

         FDMKTNEWS-MG Once a month you get a short summary of prices and
    availability of foods in the US. Sometimes, comments on new
    regulations, etc. Send email to: almanac@oes.orst.edu, with the
    message: subscribe fdmktmews-mg Food-for-thought ] This list is
    primarily intended as a forum for discussions on all aspects of food
    and eating across different disciplines. The list also provides a
    bulletin board for notices of meetings, employment opportunities, new
    publications etc.                       

         FISH: To subscribe to the Fish Mailing List, send email to
     with one of the following
    commands in the body of the message. You may leave the subject line
    blank. To subscribe to the Fish Mailing List enter "subscribe fish"
    (excl using quotes) in the body of your email to them. For a list of
    other commands and subscription options enter: "help" in the body of
    your email. If your mailer adds a signature, then you need to include
    the word "end" at the last line of your message body . Commands in
    the Subject line are NOT processed.

         FOOD-COMP: This is a list dealing with food composition and data:
    Subscription (handled manually)
                                 
    Articles:                            

         FOODENG A list for discussion and announcements on food engineering
    topics and events.
    Subscription (automatic):                 
    with the body of message reading only: "SUBSCRIBE FOODENG yourname".
    Articles:                                  

         FOOD-FOR-THOUGHT is a forum for discussion on all aspects of
    food, and a bulletin board for relevant announcements. Send articles to:
                                   
    Subscription (automatic):              
    with the body of message containing only: "JOIN FOOD_FOR-THOUGH yourname"

         FOOD-LAW : to discuss latest developments in food law and
    regulatory issues and to share course outlines and curricula. The
    subscribe instructions are: "send the comand: "subscribe food-law 
    " as the only text of an e-mail message to
                                
    Articles:                            

         FOODSAFE This is a mailing list and discussion group for food safety
    specialists in city, county and other settings. Food safety alerts
    are posted to this list when appropriate. The subscribe instructions
    are: send the command: "subscribe foodsafe yourname youremail" as the
    body of your e-mail message to:         
    Articles (Members only):                 


         FOODWINE Designed to facilitate discussion among those seriously
    interested in the academic study of food and its accompaniments in
    the 1990's. Send a subscription request to:
                                      

         J-FOOD-L Discussion of Japanese food, exchange of recipes.
                       

         OZWINE Wines of Australia and New Zealand. To subscribe to
    OZWINE, please send the following command in the body of your email
    letter to                         
    With "subscribe ozwine " being the only text of your email.

         IFT : This is intended for IFT Food Science Communicators and
    other food scientists and technologists approved by the group. Its
    purpose is to permit very rapid dialogue on fast-breaking public and
    media issues affecting the food science and technology profession.
                                      

         FOODSCI. This is a closed list, restricted to academic food
    science administrators (department chairs, heads, deans or
    directors). Only they may subscribe (and hence receive e-mails), but
    anyone can post to it. It is intended to enable a single notice to be
    sent to them all simultaneously.
                                  

         FOOD & NUTRITION SPECIALISTS:    

         NUTRITIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGY:          

5. RECOMMENDED FOOD SCIENCE AND RELATED TEXTS

The purpose of this section is to provide information on recommended texts
and reference books which would be useful to both food scientists and non
food scientists. The people recommending these books are the subscribers to
sci.bio.food-science. I will accept corrections and new submissions on an
ongoing basis.

The format of these entries are loosely based on the Journal of Food Science:
SUBJECT: Author(Year). Title. Edition. City:Publisher. ISBN. Comments.

Where you would normally see "food" as part of the "SUBJECT" field, as in
"food additives" or "food chemistry", the word "food" is dropped.

        ANALYSIS: Nielsen, S. Suzanne, ed. (1994). Introduction to the
        Chemical Analysis of Foods. 1st edition. Boston: Jones and Barlett.
        ISBN 0-86720-826-0. This is an excellent introduction to the field,
        and a good "refresher" even for more experienced food chemists.

        ANTIMICROBIALS: Davidson, P.M. and Branen, A.L.(1993).
        Antimicrobials in Foods. 2nd ed. New York: Marcel Dekker. ISBN
        0-8247-8906-7.

        ADDITIVES: Branen, A.L., Davidson, P.M., and Salminen, S.(1990).
        Food Additives. New York: Marcel Dekker. ISBN 0-8247-8046-9.

        BIOCHEMISTRY: Matthews and Van Holden (1995). Biochemistry. 2nd ed.
        Benjamin-Cummings. ISBN? Very good, very mechanistic general biochem
        textbook.

        BIOCHEMISTRY: Stryer, Lubert (1995). Biochemistry. 4th ed. Freeman
        (?). ISBN? Less mechanistic, but it's pretty much the standard in
        many medical schools.

        CHEMISTRY: Belitz, H-D, and W Grosch(1987). Food Chemistry.
        Heidleberg:Springer-Verlag. ISBN 0-387-97373-7. Translated from
        German by Dr D Hadziyev. Title in German: Lehrbuch der
        Lebensmittelchemie (2nd edition).

        CHEMISTRY: Fennema, Owen, ed. (199?). Food Chemistry. New York:
        Marcel Dekker. ISBN (Hard) 0-8247-7271-7; (Soft) 0-8247-7449-3.
        Pretty much the standard food chemistry textbook in Food Science
        departments in the United States and Canada.

        MICROBIOLOGY: Frazier, W. C., and Dennis C. Westhoff(1988). Food
        Microbiology. 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-021921-4. 539
        pp. Hardcover. 6 parts. Part1: Food and microbes. Part 2:Food
        Preservation. Part 3:Contamination and spoilage. Part 4:Foods and
        Enzymes Produced by Microbes. Part 5:Foodborne disease. Part
        6:Sanitation, control, and inspection.

        NUTRITION: Newstrom, Harvey(1993). The Nutrients Catalog. Jefferson,
        North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN: 0-89950-784-0.
        Hardbound, 538 pages, 2&3 columns of 8-point type, 5 appendices,
        index, $65.00. Monologs on 39 vitamins (subdivided into 185
        different chemicals), 43 minerals, 24 aminos, and 6 macronutrients.
        covering nutrient names, classifications, different chemical forms,
        deficiency symptoms, side-effects, toxicity symptoms, inhibiting
        factors, helping factors, food sources with measured content levels,
        +/- variance in content measurements, possible application uses,
        nutritional dosages, therapeutic dosages, experimental dosages,
        toxic dosages, 11 different versions of the USRDA and related
        regulations, and special warnings.

        ORGANIC CHEMISTRY: Fessenden, R J, and J S Fessenden(1986). Organic
        Chemistry. 3rd ed. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth, Inc. ISBN:
        0-534-05088-3.

        GENERAL REFERNCE: Budavari, Susan, ed.(1989). The Merck Index: An
        encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs, and biologicals. 11th Edition.
        Rahway, NJ: Merck & Co. ISBN: 911910-28-X. Contains extensive
        information on just about every organic compound for which there is
        either a use for, or a topic of scientific interest.

6. BOOK PUBLISHERS' WEB SITES
Aspen Publishers               
National Academy Press         


III. A LIST OF COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

         It is not expected that you know and use all of the abbreviations
    listed below. This list should be used as a reference in the event you
    come across abbreviations that confuse you, or can't remember.

         They include names of organisations, scientific abbreviations, and
    common chemical symbols, derived largely from the Merck Index.

         References given in braces {}. Where {Stryer} appears, refer to
    Lubert Stryer's _Biochemistry, _ 2nd Edition (Freeman). Where no
    reference appears the shorthand is suggested by the author. For
    suggestions and additions email to . For brevity all
    except the most common organic compounds are left out. Also left out are
    most of the units of measurement; both metric and Imperial.

         Also not included on this list are the generic abbreviations for
    the Internet, such as BTW, IMHO, or RTFM. You can get those in
    newsgroups of the "news.*" hierarchy, notably news.answers,
    news.announce.newusers, and for further help on these and other matters
    having strictly to do with the internet, post your queries to:
    news.newusers.questions.

         ON SUPERSCRIPTS AND SUBSCRIPTS: There has been some concern in the
    past on the matter of the transmission of superscripts and subscripts
    over the Internet. Since we are all limited to the ASCII character set,
    one cannot easily change typeface or fonts in a way that would be
    transmittable in the bodies of email messages or news messages. A case
    in point is the variable which reports the "heat effect" or
    "sterilisation effect" of a thermal process, called F. F is usually
    reported in the context of two other variables, z (the change in
    temperature needed for a tenfold increase in the amount of bacterial
    spores killed), and T (the core temperature of the can). In normal
    circumstances, we would write F with z as the superscript and T as the
    subscript. If we followed the old conventions used in this FAQ for
    reporting F, we would have to write: F^z_T, which appears illegible.
    Instead, we suggest a new convention which will make things clear for
    everyone. Report your variable with your parameters "spelled out" in
    parentheses. For example: F(z=10 degC; T=121.1 degC). Since the ASCII
    character set also has no "degree" symbol, these have to be "spelled
    out" as well. The abbreviation for "degrees Celsius" was taken from the
    list below.

    ^          Exponent (as in 6.022x10^23, i^(-1/2), e^k)
    _          Subscript (as in E_p (potential energy))
    /          Fraction  (as  in  1/2);  as below to separate abbreviations
               (as in UDP/UMP/UTP); per (as in km/h)
    ~          Approximately equal to; proportional to
    =          Equal to
    !=         Not equal to {C++ programming convention}
    ==         Equivalent {C++ programming convention}
    !==        Not equivalent
    >          Greater than
    >>         Much greater than

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