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Carbohydrates: Food Groups

This document summarizes the main food groups: 1. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches that provide thickening when cooked. Cooking starches breaks them down into simpler sugars. 2. Fats are used for cooking methods like frying and sautéing due to their high smoke points. They also add flavor and texture to foods. 3. Proteins found in meat, eggs, and plants change texture and become more friable when heated through denaturation.

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48 views3 pages

Carbohydrates: Food Groups

This document summarizes the main food groups: 1. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches that provide thickening when cooked. Cooking starches breaks them down into simpler sugars. 2. Fats are used for cooking methods like frying and sautéing due to their high smoke points. They also add flavor and texture to foods. 3. Proteins found in meat, eggs, and plants change texture and become more friable when heated through denaturation.

Uploaded by

Nadita
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Food Groups

Carbohydrates[edit]
Main article: Carbohydrate
Carbohydrates include the common sugar, sucrose (table sugar), a disaccharide, and such simple
sugars as glucose (made by enzymatic splitting of sucrose) and fructose (from fruit), and starches
from sources such as cereal flour, rice, arrowroot and potato.[14]
The interaction of heat and carbohydrate is complex. Long-chain sugars such as starch tend to
break down into simpler sugars when cooked, while simple sugars can form syrups. If sugars are
heated so that all water of crystallisation is driven off, then caramelization starts, with the sugar
undergoing thermal decomposition with the formation of carbon, and other breakdown products
producing caramel. Similarly, the heating of sugars and proteins elicits the Maillard reaction, a basic
flavor-enhancing technique.
An emulsion of starch with fat or water can, when gently heated, provide thickening to the dish being
cooked. In European cooking, a mixture of butter and flour called a roux is used to thicken liquids to
make stews or sauces.[15] In Asian cooking, a similar effect is obtained from a mixture of rice or corn
starch and water. These techniques rely on the properties of starches to create simpler mucilaginous
saccharides during cooking, which causes the familiar thickening of sauces. This thickening will
break down, however, under additional heat.

Fats[edit]
Main article: Fat

Doughnuts frying in oil

Types of fat include vegetable oils, animal products such as butter and lard, as well as fats from
grains, including maize and flax oils. Fats are used in a number of ways in cooking and baking. To
prepare stir fries, grilled cheese or pancakes, the pan or griddle is often coated with fat or oil. Fats
are also used as an ingredient in baked goods such as cookies, cakes and pies. Fats can reach
temperatures higher than the boiling point of water, and are often used to conduct high heat to other
ingredients, such as in frying, deep frying or sautéing. Fats are used to add flavor to food (e.g.,
butter or bacon fat), prevent food from sticking to pans and create a desirable texture.

Proteins[edit]
Main articles: Protein (nutrient) and Protein denaturation
Edible animal material, including muscle, offal, milk, eggs and egg whites, contains substantial
amounts of protein. Almost all vegetable matter (in particular legumes and seeds) also includes
proteins, although generally in smaller amounts. Mushrooms have high protein content. Any of these
may be sources of essential amino acids. When proteins are heated they become denatured
(unfolded) and change texture. In many cases, this causes the structure of the material to become
softer or more friable – meat becomes cooked and is more friable and less flexible. In some cases,
proteins can form more rigid structures, such as the coagulation of albumen in egg whites. The
formation of a relatively rigid but flexible matrix from egg white provides an important component in
baking cakes, and also underpins many desserts based on meringue.

Water is often used to cook foods such as noodles.

Water[edit]
Main article: Water
Cooking often involves water, frequently present in other liquids, which is both added in order to
immerse the substances being cooked (typically water, stock or wine), and released from the foods
themselves. A favorite method of adding flavor to dishes is to save the liquid for use in other recipes.
Liquids are so important to cooking that the name of the cooking method used is often based on how
the liquid is combined with the food, as in steaming, simmering, boiling, braising and blanching.
Heating liquid in an open container results in rapidly increased evaporation, which concentrates the
remaining flavor and ingredients – this is a critical component of both stewing and sauce making.

Vitamins and minerals[edit]

Vegetables contain important vitamins and minerals

Main articles: Vitamin and Mineral (nutrient)


Vitamins and minerals are required for normal metabolism but which the body cannot manufacture
itself and which must therefore come from external sources. Vitamins come from several sources
including fresh fruit and vegetables (Vitamin C), carrots, liver (Vitamin A), cereal bran, bread, liver (B
vitamins), fish liver oil (Vitamin D) and fresh green vegetables (Vitamin K). Many minerals are also
essential in small quantities including iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium chloride and sulfur; and in
very small quantities copper, zinc and selenium. The micronutrients, minerals, and vitamins[16] in fruit
and vegetables may be destroyed or eluted by cooking. Vitamin C is especially prone to oxidation
during cooking and may be completely destroyed by protracted cooking. [17][failed verification] The
bioavailability of some vitamins such as thiamin, vitamin B6, niacin, folate, and carotenoids are
increased with cooking by being freed from the food microstructure. [18] Blanching or steaming
vegetables is a way of minimizing vitamin and mineral loss in cooking.

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