Food
Category : 5th Class
LERNBING OBJECTIVES
This lesson will help you to:
QUICK CONCEPT REVIEW
In this chapter we shall learn some more things related to food. As we already know that by having a contaminated and spoiled food we can fall ill. In this chapter we shall learn how the food gets spoils and how we can prevent our food from getting spoiled.
Historical preview
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY SPOLED FOOD?
Spoilage of food is a state of deterioration of food in which the food no longer remains suitable for human consumption. So the spoiled food means that the food can no longer be taken as it has got very much deteriorated.
WHEN AND HOW DOES THE FOOD GET SPOILED?
The food gets spoiled because of the attack of microorganisms depend upon food and they feast on the food when it is not attended. Worms, insects and bugs also spoil. One of the major causes of food spoilage is the storage of food in warm places.
HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE FOOD HAS SPOILD?
As soon as there is change in colour, flavor, odor and appearance, the food has started to get spoiled. The first thing which comes to our notice is the change in colour or the appearance of the food. The food either gets softer or harder than its normal state. For example, the fruits kept unattended for a few days will become softer. There is also a foul smell from a rotten food.
Some food items such as biscuits, pickles, cooked vegetables and boiled milk, etc., take some time to get spoiled as compared to uncooked vegetables and flesh, unattended fruits and milk. When we keep the food in a warm place for a long time there is growth of food spoiling micro-organisms at a faster rate. That is why the food kept in the refrigerator does not get spoiled very soon, as the temperature inside it is lower.
HOW CAN THE FOOD BE PRESERVED?
By taking some simple precautions we can save our food against spoiling. Some of these are:
Apart from these there are other techniques also which are used at homes and food manufacturing companies to prevent food spoilage. These are;
These are the things which we can keep in mind while we are at home. But when we are travelling we have to
preserve our food from heat and moisture.
PACKING FOOD WHILE TRAVELLING
Here are a few precautions which should be taken:
WHY IS THERE A NEED TO PRESRRVE FOOD?
We need to preserve food for the following reasons:
WHERE DOES THE FOOD COME FROM?
In earlier classes you have read about how a farmer grows the seeds and then he irrigates the fields. But till now we have discussed the farmers who give us vegetables and grains. There are a few more types of farmers such as:
Not all the farmers own their fields. Only some of the farmers work on their own lands. The rest of the farmers we see in different places are the ones kept by original owners to cultivate their lands. Due to high costs of land and the materials used in agriculture all the farmers cannot afford their own lands.
PROCESS OF GROWING THE FOOD
We all know that our food comes from the fields. The farmers work in the fields and grow food for us. But do you know that the whole process of growing food, takes a long time and needs a lot of effort. Let us discuss the
Process of growing food step by step:
But now we have modern machines to plough the fields such as tractors which are attached to the plough making the process easy.
A few examples are:
The farmers get the seeds either from the seed shops or they use the seeds saved form the last year crops. The seeds come from adult plants to make new.
.
The major ways to get rid of the weeds is by hand picking or these days herbicides are also used.
There are also manures which are made from the remains of dead plants.
So we can now say, that forming is not only about sowing the seeds and reaping the crop. Different things along with the seeds are also used such as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
What we eat today is very different from what our grandparents used to eat. A few years back more vegetables and fruits were used in the daily diet. Due importance was given to the cereals too. But with the changing times our food habits have also changed. In old times there was less use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers as compared to present times.
Today a lot of fast food and processed food has taken place of vegetables and pulses. This is the main reason for nutritional deficiency amongst us today.
The food habits also vary from place to place. Different regions have different food habits and this has an effect on the crops grown there. Cultures also have effect on the food eaten in a region.
For example:
In north, a lot of dairy products are used in cooking the food, in west of our country fishes and coconut are included in the food. So different people from different places and cultures have different food habits.
We all eat food and need it in order to live and work. But there are people who do not get enough food sometimes. This situation can be either because of natural causes or it can be man-made.
The lock of availability of food is called famine.
Sometimes lack of rain causes famine. This situation is called drought. The decrease in supply of water does not let the crops to grow and hence there is shortage of food.
The other reasons can be floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Sometimes the production of food is less than required.
There can also be shortage of food when the food gets spoiled in a large quantity. This happens when the food is stored improperly. Because of this the food gets wasted.
This causes a lot of diseases and deaths. The diseases caused due to improper or inadequate food are called ma nutrition diseases where the word 'malnutrition' means lack of nutrition. Our body can work properly only if we get proper and sufficient food.
Some of the major malnutrition diseases in the world are:
Name of the disease |
Occurs due to deficiency of |
Beriberi |
Vitamin |
Kwashiorkor |
Proteins |
Scurvy |
Vitamin C |
Pellagra |
Vitamin |
Rickets |
Vitamin D, calcium or phosphorus |
Symptoms |
Foods that contain the nutrient |
Swollen abdomen and shortness of breath |
Wheat gram, nuts and most of the vegetables. |
Swollen abdomen and diarrhea |
This has to be carefully treated. You can’t give protein rich diet straightly |
Loss of hair and teeth swelling and pain in joints |
Citrus fruits, guavas, tomatoes. |
Diarrhea, insomnia and memory loss |
Whole grains peanuts and lentils. |
Skeletal deformation, pain in bones |
Fatty fish, cow’s milik egg yolk. |
Hunger is something which our body makes us feel when it needs food. We want to eat something when we feel hungry and our body needs energy to do work People fall prey to the above mentioned diseases when they do not get food and some of them even die due to hunger To fight from situations like this the food stored in god owns is used. A go down is like a storehouse where the extra grains and cereals are preserved so that they can be j used when there is not sufficient production of food But a proper care is needed as sometimes a lot of food is; wasted due to improper storage of food.
How do we taste food? When we taste food we get different tastes from different foods. Our tongue helps us to taste the food with the help of our brain. There are different taste buds in our tongue which can detect different tastes. One region of our tongue can taste sour while the other can taste sweet and so on.
Digestion starts from mouth: The role of mouth is not only to take the food inside and chew it but also to digest it. The salivary glands present in mouth start producing saliva when the smell of food starts coming. They produce more saliva when the food is taken inside the mouth. There is also secretion of juices which help the food to break down further. So in this way the saliva starts the, digestion of food from mouth. Sometimes when we eat rice or chapatti, etc., we get a taste of sweetness after chewing them for some time. This is because rice or the chapatti contains starch which is converted to sugars with the action of saliva.
Our body changes the food to glucose which then gets mixed with the bloodstream.
What is glucose?
It i8s an important energy source that is needed by all the organs of our body. It comes from we eat.
Glucose is given to the person who is ill when his body is not in the state to form it. It is given to the patient so as to provide energy to his body.
Plants also need food: Like any other living being, plants also need food. You have already studied in previous classes that plants need water, air and sunlight to prepare their food. This process is known as photosynthesis.
Some of the plants like pitcher plant, Venus fly trap, sundew etc., eat insects and hence are called insectivorous.
Food for animals: All animals need food to survive. There are different types of food that different animals eat.
The types of animals depending on their food are:
So now you can see, that all the animals have different types of food. Sometimes one animal eats the other and so on. Together they form a chain called food chain.
For example:
Many food chains put together is called food web.
As we can see that growing food is not easy and many people do not get to eat proper amount of food, we should try to minimize the wastage of food. We can do so in these ways:
By following these steps we can minimize the wastage of
Food and we can fight against situation like famine.
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