Food and Industrial Biotechnology

The aim of the course is to provide adequate knowledge on the structure and properties of food constituents, on the mechanisms of the main reactions of alteration. The main knowledge acquired will cover food composition, structure of food constituents, main alteration of food components. The student will be able to apply the acquired knowledge, with the following competence: ability to assess the quality of food, based both on compositional data and on eventual alteration and adulteration during food processing. Knowledge and understanding: Knowledge and understanding of nutrients and other products that are intrinsic or unrelated to the composition of the food. The teaching addresses the knowledge of the chemical structure, the physico-chemical characteristics and the effect on the organism, adulteration of food components, modification of nutrients during treatments and processing (i.e. cooking). Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: The student will acquire the ability to approach food, as a source of nutrients with various functions (energy, plastic and regulatory), to recognize the molecular structures of the most common food components and their reaction products; to recognize and understand the generic functional and chemical properties of the most common food components; to understand the chemical reactions occurring during food processing, to understand how reactive groups of food components play an important role in chemical reactions, to describe the effect of chemical reactions on the characteristics of food in a qualitative sense and to describe the influence of processing conditions on chemical reaction and on the properties of food components;. The course will provide students the tools to understand and monitor phenomena and to apply the knowledge acquired. After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to: Autonomy of judgment: The learning of the basic concepts of food chemistry will consolidate the student's scientific culture and therefore allow him to independently elaborate judgment in the interpretation of experimental data as well as in the deepening of his own knowledge both in the own area of work that outside of it. Communication skills: Acquisition of the ability to expose and explain, in a simple but rigorous manner with an appropriate technical language, the nutritional characteristics of foods, the influence of storage and processing conditions on chemical reaction and on the properties of food components. Learning skills: Students in the Food Chemistry course must acquire the basic knowledge in the food area and demonstrate that can apply the chemical-structural concepts learned in other lectures of the course.