Would you consider yourself to be healthy?
Yes No
Knowing whether or not people think that they are healthy or not is very important when designing a low fat product, because if everyone thinks that they are healthy they will not see the benefit of spending money on low fat products.
Here are my results for the different age groups:
From this I can conclude that teenager think that they are the least healthy, and the elderly think they are healthy.
I have found out that older people were happier with their body type and current health, and did not want to improve it by going on a diet. Middle aged people and teenagers were unhappier with their body types and current health and wanted to consider healthier meal option. Therefore I can conclude that the majority of the people that will be buying my low fat meal product will be teenagers and middle aged people.
For my secondary research I visited some websites that would give me information about obesity levels, and affects of being obese. The reason I wanted to have this information was because this would help me to decide on my design specification. I would decide whether or not I would be doing a low fat product or a cook chill product. This is what I found out. The following information is an extract from a website.
What is obesity?
The INUS web site describes obesity as the following: As the direct measurement of body fat is difficult, Body Mass Index (BMI), a simple weight to height ratio (kg/m2), is typically used to classify overweight and obese adults. Consistent with this, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently published international standards for classifying overweight and obesity in adults. Obesity is defined as a BMI ³ 30 kg/m2, but can be further sub-divided on the bases of the severity of the obesity.
The web site then goes on to explain that although BMI provides a simple, convenient measurement of obesity, a more important aspect of obesity is the regional distribution of excess body fat. Mortality and morbidity vary with the distribution of body fat, with the highest risk linked to excessive abdominal fat (‘central obesity’). Central obesity is related to a number of diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). The importance of central obesity is clear in populations (e.g. Asian) who tend to have relatively low BIM’s but high levels of abdominal fat, and are particularly prone to NIDDM, hypertension and coronary heart disease (CHD). An Indian Study recently revealed that almost 20% of adults who were not overweight or obese still had central obesity, putting them at a greater risk of developing these associated diseases (Gopalan 1998). Additional methods to measure abdominal fat exist, such as waist circumference and waist to hip ratios (WHR) but unlike BMI these tend not
To be taken routinely. Changes in waist circumference reflect changes in risk for CVD and other chronic diseases. As with BMI cut-off values have been set to identified increased risk, but for waist circumference these need to be sex and population specific. As the risk varies single global values can not be used.
This show’s how dangerous being obese can be, therefore people should take try to be as healthy as possible. People should eat low fat foods too, and exercise at least 30 minutes everyday.
Design Idea’s
1 2 3 4
Pasta and Parmesan Pasta and Mozzarella Pasta and Cheddar Chicken and
Cheese Cheese Cranberry sauce
5 6 7 8
Examples of existing products
Developmental work
For my developmental work I needed to use decide which of my design idea’s I should use and then change certain aspects of them to suit the consumer. I decided to develop my chicken and also my pasta dish ideas. The reason for this is because both of these foods are popular with the market sector which I am aiming it at. I also tried making a fish dish, but this proved not to be as popular with the public as my pasta or chicken dishes.
Pasta
For my developmental work involving pasta my aim is to produce a meal which fits my specification. There are many different combinations of ingredients that can be added to pasta, but for my developmental work I have decided to use a basic recipe and develop upon that. Here are the ingredients
Pasta (a mixture of different shapes)
Cheese (a selection of mozzarella, cheddar and Parmesan)
Bacon or ham
Cream (low fat)
I have chosen to use such basic ingredients because I believe that these ingredients make the best sort of pasta dish, it can also be easily scaled up for mass production.
Stages of developmental work
There were many different stages that I needed to go through. To help me with this I planned them out using a flow chart.
As you can see from the chart on the previous page. I went through many design processes. The decisions to make the changes were made because of feed back from others.
Chicken
For my developmental work involving chicken my aim is to produce a meal which fits my specification. There are many different ways of cooking chicken and many different ingredients that can be added to it once cooked or whilst cooking. This is the main reason why I am developing with chicken.
The developmental work which I shall be doing with my chicken will be as follows.
- I shall make snack size chicken
- develop with low fat cheeses and different sauces
The reason for wanting to develop my chicken into snack size is because if they were one day mass produced people would be able to eat them as a snack, I wanted to use sauces with my chicken and different cheeses because everybody likes sauces and cheeses and I felt it would be a good idea to incorporate the two into one.
Below are in depth write ups of my developmental work
Chicken coated in cheese (parmesan)
Chicken coated in cheese (Mozzarella)
Tomato and Bacon Pasta
Pasta and Parmesan cheese/cheddar cheese and mozzarella
Thai Green Curry
Results of Final Product
Cad/Cam in the Food industry
What is CAD and CAM in food technology?
ICT is an exciting and fast moving area within food product design and manufacture. Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacture are just one part of this. CAD and CAM helps manufactures because it allows them to do their job much faster that usual. I used CAD and CAM in this food technology project.
Here is a list of the things which I used it for:
Costing
Nutritional analysis
Designing my packaging
Graphs
Pictures
Flow charts
If my product were to be made in a factory there would be lots of examples of CAM. The machinery used to weigh out the ingredients, the cookers, the conveyor belts etc are all examples of CAM.
Packaging
There are many different ways in which I could package my final product. On pages 15-16 there are many examples of the different types of packaging, here are some others.
I do not think it would be a very good idea to use either glass or a tin for my packaging, the main reason for this is because they are both very damaging to the environment. If I were to keep my product in a glass jar then it would not last as long as it is not sealed as tight as plastic. Also with glass jars and tins it would not be possible to organise the food decoratively inside the packaging to make it more appealing to the viewer.
For my packaging I will use a mixture of cardboard and plastic. The reason for this is because the plastic and be easily recycled and the cardboard is biodegradable. Using these two materials will also allow me to have more imaginative designs.
The packaging of a product contains many different forms of information. The reason for this is because of law. Here is a list of all the things that should be included on food packaging and some extra’s which I will include.
The packaging on the previous page is made out of cardboard. It is a cardboard sleeve. My pasta will b contained in a see through plastic container. The reason for me having my packaging this way is because normally when opening up a product the packaging gets damaged and you cannot see the cooking instructions for example, but with this packaging all you have to do is pull out the plastic container, pierce holes in it and place it in the microwave.
Evaluation
My final solution turned out to be a very popular product amongst the people which taste tested it, the reason for this is quite probably the simplicity. I have made a meal which is healthy and appeals to the majority of the population. Therefore I believe that my product has been a success. I have met all of my targets, my product fits the design specification perfectly. The main difficulty which I had during this piece of coursework was deciding which recipe’s I should develop, to help me decide I asked people what they wanted. I believe that this was the correct way of doing things as I could not go wrong.
If I were to modify my product once again I would probably modify the ingredients, I would have more exotic ingredients. The reason for this is because exotic foods are becoming very popular in today’s society.
Mark Austen Food Technology /