Food processing has two main disadvantages:

1. Food processing generally decreases the nutritive value of the food material:

During processing of raw food material, many vital nutrients such as vitamins and minerals are lost. For example, milling of wheat to obtain white flour (maida) results in loss of 66% iron, 75% B vitamins (mainly thiamine and niacin) and 66% pantothenic acid. Most of vitamins E present in the wheat grain is also lost during milling. Similarly, rice loses most of iron and B vitamins during milling and polishing. Milled and polished rice, therefore, contains much less amounts of iron, B vitamins as compared with parboiled rice or brown rice.

2. Food processing results in loss in quantity of the food material:

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For example, during milling if wheat for white flour (maida), bout 28% to 37% of grain by weight is discarded.

It may be mentioned here that nutritive value as well as the quantity of the food material decreases with each step in refinement during food processing.