Yeasts are the active agents responsible for three of our most important foods - bread, wine, and beer - and for the almost universally used mind/ personality-altering drug, ethanol. Anthropologists have suggested that it was the production of ethanol that motivated primitive people to settle down and become farmers. The Earth is thought to be about 4. 5 billion years old. Fossil microorganisms have been found in Earth rock 3. 3 to 3. 5 billion years old. Microbes have been on Earth for that length of time carrying out their principal task of recycling organic matter as they still do today. Yeasts have most likely been on Earth for at least 2 billion years before humans arrived, and they playa key role in the conversion of sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Early humans had no concept of either microorganisms or fermentation, yet the earliest historical records indicate that by 6000 B. C. they knew how to make bread, beer, and wine. Earliest humans were foragers who col lected and ate leaves, tubers, fruits, berries, nuts, and cereal seeds most of the day much as apes do today in the wild. Crushed fruits readily undergo natural fermentation by indigenous yeasts, and moist seeds germinate and develop amylases that produce fermentable sugars. Honey, the first con centrated sweet known to humans, also spontaneously ferments to alcohol if it is by chance diluted with rainwater. Thus, yeasts and other microbes have had a long history of 2 to 3."

In the past 35 years, the use of commercial enzymes has grown from an insignificant role in the food industry to an important aspect of food processing. This Third Edition of Enzymes in Food Processing explores recent and extensive changes in the use of enzymes as well as the discovery of new enzymes and their uses. Included in the book is a history of the role of enzymes in food processing, enzyme characterization, a discussion of different classes of enzymes including lipases and proteases, commercial enzyme production, and the processing of particular foods such as meat, vegetables, fruit, baked goods, milk products, and beer. Unlike earlier editions, it provides basic information on enzymes and their uses not adequately described in the current literature. Food technologists will find in this edition a description of the properties of those enzymes that are important in food processing, as well as a description of the properties of those enzymes that are important in food processing, as well as a description of the many applications of enzymes in the foods processing industry. The book is intended for food technologists, and will be of value to the microbiologist and enzyme chemist as well. This treatise provides a comprehensive treatment of enzymes used in food processing.
Key Features
* Covers genetic modification of enzymes in the food industry
* Discuss enzyme function and dependence on environmental parameters
* Explores practical applications of food enzymes in industry