Food processing / extraction ontology

[Guest guest]

I was curious if anyone has developed an ontology of food processing

and extraction mechanisms, some that are good others bad. I raise

this idea because a conversation on another group devolved somewhat

because the term " processed " was not precise enough and suddenly

butter, refined sugar, xylitol, rapadura etc. are all lumped together

as being " processed. "

I posted this as a seed of an idea for developing such an ontology,

not intended to be complete but to stimulate discussion.

---

" processed " could cover a wide variety of processing some very simple

and retaining healthful benefits to destructive and health

threatening.

Certainly mechanical extraction is used for a variety of products

including rapadura sugar, and I would argue butter would fall under

this category.

Heat processing would sometimes be good, other times be bad. Where it

destroys enzymes and breaks-down proteins, bad such as pasteurizing

milk. However there is also good heat processing, maple syrup for

example.

Chemical extraction and synthesis is probably what concerns me the

most, corn syrup, xylitol, artificial sweeteners, white cane sugar,

etc.