The Benefits of Flavor

The Benefits of Flavor
Flavorful food is a joy and a pleasure that needs no excuse or justification. Nevertheless, it is actually healthy as well.

Flavor can guide us in making nutritional choices, as mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, but that is not all.

What the physiologists call the hedonistic aspect of taste, in this case the sheer delight that good seasonings can bring to eating apparently has real health benefits.

Good flavor, or even anticipated good flavor suggested by the appetizing appearance and smell of the food, cause saliva to gather in the mouth.

Saliva contains an enzyme that begins digestion, especially of the starches and it also helps moisten and soften for food swallowing.

The stomach also responds to pleasant flavors by secreting extra gastric juices.

So the better the flavor, the better our digestion, and the more comfortable healthy and well nourished we are.

Consider the so-called “French paradox”: the traditional French diet is heavy with cholesterol-laden foods – cream, butter, eggs, red meats, cheeses, goose liver – and French eaters do have high cholesterol levels in their blood, but the do not have the high rate of heart attacks that American doctors associates with this condition.

One of the most convincing hypotheses put forward to explain this paradox is that in France the traditional relaxed enjoyment of good, flavorful food at the table is what keeps the heart attacks away.

Seasoning can make appetizing the foods that the doctor orders, by they low salt, no cholesterol or simply more vegetable.

A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down; a handful of herbs nicely compensates for salt; and intriguing spices make-up for lowering the fat content.
The Benefits of Flavor

Sicilian Lemon Oil

Sicilian Lemon Oil
The methods used for oil extraction of Sicilian lemon oil are:

Hand pressing

• Sponge
• Ecuelle

Machine processing
Two methods are use:

• Sfumatrici – The fruit is halved and the juice first expressed by reaming. The peels are then individually pressed to release the oil.
• Pellatrice. The whole fruit in a fine stream of water, the oil and cellular detritus being separated and the water recycled. The oil is obtained by centrifuged the liquor and pressing the solid matter.

The oxygenated constituents of lemon oil, to which the oil owes most of its odor and flavor, are the more soluble in water and for the highest quality oil it is desirable to separate it from any aqueous phase as rapidly as possible.

Although widely used, centrifuging is not an entirely satisfactory method of achieving separation owing to the formation of persistent emulsions.

Lemon tree tend to produce fruit continuously but the age of the tree and growing conditions result in a more-or-less seasonal cropping.
Sicilian Lemon Oil

Lactose and Maltose

Lactose and Maltose
Lactose
Lactose (C12H22O11) the sugar component of mammalian milk, is less sweet and less water soluble than sucrose.

While babies and young children generally are able to metabolize this sugar, some are unable to do so.

The ability to metabolize the sugar appears to decrease with age. When a person is unable to metabolize lactose, the ingestion of milk may cause intestinal discomfort, cramps and diarrhea.

The major source of lactose is whey, a cheese by product. Because lactose is not as sweet as sucrose, larger amounts can be used in this foods in which the texture benefits from a high solids content.

Maltose
Maltose (C12H22O11) or malt sugar is produced during the malting process in brewing (enzyme conversion of starch).

It is converted to alcohol by the action of yeasts through an intermediate conversion to dextrose.
This sugar is much less sweet than sucrose, and it is used mainly in the manufacturing of baked food and infant foods.
Lactose and Maltose