Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Promoting folate intake from natural food sources is a healthy strategy for attaining
safe levels of folate. This could avoid potential harm from chronic excessive intakes
of folic acid from fortifi ed food products or supplements. Over recent years, the
consumption of ready-to-eat foods, such as packed vegetables or precooked meals,
has become a signifi cant part of the diet. Accordingly, the folate composition of
these food categories must be investigated. There is a broad lack of folate data in
food composition tables and databases, especially for ready-to-eat products. This
context warrants the need of new data on total folate and individual forms of folate
in ready-to-eat commercial products. This could be included in the food composi-
tion tables or databases to assess its dietary intakes. Currently, the recommended
intake of folate in some European countries ranged from 400 to 500 mg/day for
women of childbearing age, 600 mg/day for the second half of pregnancy and
500 mg/day for breastfeeding women. For other population groups, the recom-
mended daily intakes (RDI) for folate are established depending on the age and
sex of the individuals (children around 150-200 mg/day, and adults and elderly,
300-400 mg/day), the limits vary considerably among European countries. The
challenges to improve the folate data in food composition databases exist in most
developed countries (Fajardo et al.
2012
).
Olsen et al. (
2012
) developed a new concept of a complete and healthy ready-to-
heat (RTH) meal and tested it in at-home study in Norway. Since previous at-home
testing of meals has been conducted on products like soup and lasagne, they adapted
a new procedure for at-home testing of more complex meals. The results indicated
that the likelihood of buying healthy convenience food is fi rst affected by overall
liking of the meal, which is affected by sensory liking, such as appearance, fl avor
and odor. The liking depends on the socio-demography of the consumers. Gender,
age, education and overall liking infl uence consumers' likelihood of buying the
salmon meal, while no signifi cant socio-demographic drivers were found for the
chicken meal. There is little published specifi cally on the relationship between
ready-meals and obesity. However a Brazilian study on almost 50,000 subjects found
signifi cant correlations between obesity in women and intakes of sugar and soft
drinks, ready-to-eat meals, and potatoes. Food-choice depends on balancing advan-
tages, availability, accessibility, attractiveness, and affordability (Celnik et al.
2012
).
6.6
Conclusions
Modern lifestyle has increased demand for the ready meals in the form of nutritious
snacks and convenience foods, ethnic dishes and other specialty products. This
chapter has presented a brief overview on the ready-meal in terms of its defi nitions,
types and importance. It illustrates the convenience of ready-meal and how it affects
consumers' modern lifestyle. The nutritional aspects of ready meals consumption is
related to different health issues. In relation to ready meals, most on-going researches
are focusing on the ways to improve the effi ciency and performance of the production
process. These areas include the chilling, freezing and packaging of the products.
