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Fermentation
The process of chemical change in animal or plant material, catalysed by enzymes of biological origin. It may be intended, as in brewing of beer or vinegar, or unintended and undesirable, as in food spoilage.
Fermented (food)
Food material having been subjected to fermentation.
Food
The Codex Alimentarius defines 'Food' as "any substance, whether processed, semi processed or raw, which is intended for human consumption and includes drink, chewing gum and any substance which has been used in the manufacture, preparation or treatment of food, but does not include cosmetics or tobacco or substances only used as drugs". In the UK Food Safety Act 1990, 'food' is defined as including drink, food ingredients, food additives, chewing gum and similar substances, but excluding live animals or live fish (unless consumed alive), animal feeds, controlled drugs and medicinal products bearing a product licence. This definition states what 'food' includes and excludes (similarly to the latter part of the Codex definition) but it is deficient in failing to define what food is.
Food hygiene
All environmental factors, practices, processes and precautions involved in protecting food from contamination by any agency, and preventing any organism present from multiplying to an extent that would expose consumers to risk or result in premature spoilage or decomposition of food.
Fortified (food)
Three separate circumstances may be defined. Restoration - the addition of nutrients to foods in order to restore the level of those nutrients that were originally present, but have been destroyed or lost in processing. Enrichment - the addition to a food of one or more nutrients which were already present in that food in lower than desirable amounts. Fortification - the addition to a food of significant quantities of a nutrient that was not originally present in that food or was present only in nutritionally insignificant amount.
Fresh
The condition of a short shelf-life perishable unprocessed food prior to perceptible evidence of physical, chemical or microbiological change. Fresh is normally applied to unprocessed foods e.g. fresh eggs, fresh meat, showing that they are in their original state. It is also used in apparently contradictory terms, e.g. fresh pasteurised cream to distinguish it from more highly processed sterilised cream.
Functional
Fulfilling a specific physical, chemical or biological function.
Functional food(s)
All foods are functional, and to term some (as distinct from others) as 'functional' is illogical. The term is one of the marketing-coined names (others are 'neutraceuticals' and 'designer foods') to categorise foods which are considered or claimed to offer specific health benefits while avoiding the requirement to be licensed medicines (See Marketing terms, below).
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