While processing is sometimes thought of as a negative, many food processing techniques actually benefit our health. Understanding what some of these processes involve and how they play a role in our health can add to our enjoyment of food and enable us to better choose a variety of nutritious foods.

Read on to find out more about pasteurization, fortification and fat reduction.

Pasteurization: Keeping Milk and Other Food Products Safe and Nutritious
Pasteurization is a common food processing technique that destroys harmful bacteria sometimes found in milk. Even under the strictest conditions, cows can naturally carry certain disease-causing bacteria that may be passed to the milk they produce.

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Pasteurization destroys harmful bacteria in milk by rapidly heating it to high temperatures, holding it there for very brief periods of time (about 15 to 30 seconds), and then rapidly cooling it down.

Disease-causing bacteria cannot survive the rapid change in temperature that occurs during pasteurization and, as a result, this process helps to keep milk safe and healthy.

Pasteurization does not change the nutrient content of milk, and pasteurized milk is still a good source of calcium, vitamin D and 15 other essential nutrients.

Pasteurization has been practised for more than a century and, by law, all fluid milk sold in Canada must be pasteurized.

Other foods like fruit juices, honey, beer and egg whites are sometimes pasteurized to destroy harmful bacteria.

Fortification: Adding Vitamins and Minerals for Health
Fortification is the process of adding vitamins and minerals to foods to increase their nutritional value.

By adding nutrients that people sometimes struggle to get enough of, fortification can help to protect us from nutritional deficiencies and reduce our risk for chronic diseases such as osteoporosis or heart disease.

Common examples of fortified foods:

Fluid milk. Canadian law requires all fluid milk products to be fortified with vitamin D. Vitamin D is critical for bone health. In addition, there is growing evidence that vitamin D may play a role in reducing our risk for certain types of cancer and conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

Folic acid. Folic acid is a B vitamin that helps to prevent neural tube birth defects in developing babies. It also plays a role in reducing our risk for heart disease.

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In Canada, grain products such as flour have been fortified with folic acid since 1998. Scientific evidence suggests that this practice has had a positive impact on health. For example, research carried out in Ontario indicates that cases of neural tube defects have dropped by almost half since the widespread fortification of grain products with folic acid began a decade ago.

Health Canada regulates the use of fortification very carefully. Food producers can only fortify foods that meet specific standards described in the Food and Drug Act Regulations. This prevents the overuse of nutrients that can be harmful to health if eaten in excessive amounts.

Cutting the Fat
While some fat is essential for good health, excessive amounts of fat can increase our risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Recognizing this, food producers use a variety of processing techniques to decrease the amount or type of fat found in some of the foods we eat.

Skimming is the process of removing some or most of the fat from fluid milk. The process involves centrifuging, or spinning the milk at high speeds, to separate the fat from the rest of the milk. Skimming milk lowers the total and saturated fat content.

However, the vitamin A content of milk is also decreased in the skimming process. This is remedied by fortifying the milk with vitamin A before it’s packaged for sale. Skimming does not change the amount of calcium, protein or other nutrients found in milk.

To offer us health benefits, food producers can also change the type of fats that are found in foods. For example, food producers have begun to lower the trans fat content of some of their foods.

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Trans fatty acids are a type of fat that has been linked to an increased risk for heart disease and certain types of cancer. Adding hydrogen to vegetable oils to make shortening creates trans fatty acids that then make their way into foods such as cookies, crackers and other snack products.

Recognizing the risks associated with trans fatty acids, food producers have begun to use different processing techniques that do not involve hydrogenation. This change has helped to decrease the amounts of trans fatty acids found in foods.

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Food processing can offer surprising health benefits. By choosing foods that are processed to promote optimum nutrition, as well as eating a wide variety of unprocessed foods, you can find the balance you need to eat well and feel great.

Learn More

Trans Fat
Health Canada provides this up-to-date, reliable information on initiatives for reducing the trans fat intake of Canadians.

Raw Milk
York Region (Ontario) Public Health offers this easy-to-understand description of the benefits of pasteurization and the Canadian regulations about raw milk.

Questions and Answers: Food Fortification Proposed Policy
Health Canada answers questions about its review of Canadian policy on adding vitamins and minerals to foods.