Food Science vs Food Technology
If someone asks you “what is science”, can you give a precise answer without hesitating and taking much time to reply? Or will it make a big trouble in your mind, making you quite confused? However, sometimes, a simple question can open your mind to several other complex questions, forcing you to think about it further. It will be such a situation when you are told to distinguish the features of science and technology. Science and technology are key words that are used collectively in many cases, and always closely related. Therefore, sometimes it is hard to identify the difference between these two terms. However, they are used in different contexts; and the terms, science and technology can be differentiated based on the context it is used. Science and technology related with food can be called as food science and food technology. Now onwards, we will focus on how to differentiate food science and food technology.
What is food science?
The term science cannot be easily expressed in one or two words. Biological, physical and chemical sciences are some of the basic science streams, which can be further divided in to several sub divisions. Food science is an applied science, which is related with foods, and it is a mix of all the above basic sciences. Food science comprises different subject areas such as food chemistry, food physics, microbiology, preservation, food nutrition, food analysis etc. Technology is also coming under science because it is the application part of that. The base of the technology is science, and they are very much dependent on each other. Therefore, we cannot talk about technology neglecting the science. People engaged in researching food science and innovating new technologies related to foods are called food scientists.
What is food technology?
Technology is the output of the advanced usage of science. Also, it can be called as applied science. When the knowledge on science is developing daily, people tend to use it to get maximum benefit out of that. Food industry is not an exception. They also try to use scientific innovations for the advancement of the industry. These applications or technologies can be categorized as food process technology, storage technology and preservation technology. The technologies used after the point of harvesting of crops until the point of consumption belong to food technology. Some of the technologies used in food preservation are sterilization, pasteurization, packaging, chilling, freezing and dehydration. A specific technological application can be called as a technique. Some of them are analytical, separation, vacuum packaging and modified atmospheric techniques.
What is difference between food science and food technology?
Technology is one of the major concerns of science. Behavior of different components in food items can be explained by food science whereas, the application of that knowledge is known as technology. Those who are engaged in exploring scientific aspects of foods are called food scientists, and those who adopt new technologies to the industry are called food technologist.