Machteld Huber

Organic food quality: a framework for concept, definition and evaluation from the European perspective.

Consumers buy organic food because they believe in the high quality of the product. Furthermore, the EU legal regulatory framework for organic food and farming defines high quality of the products as an important goal of production. A major challenge is the need to define food quality concepts and methods for determination. A background is described which allows embedding of the quality definitions as well as evaluation methods into a conceptual framework connected to the vision and mission of organic agriculture and food production. Organic food quality is defined through specific aspects and criteria. For evaluation each criterion has to be described by indicators. The determination of indicators should be through parameters, where parameters are described by methods. Conversely, the conceptual framework is described according to underlying principles and starting definitions are given, but further work has do be done on the detailed scientific description of the indicators. Furthermore, parameters have to be defined for the evaluation of suitability of these indicators for organic food production.

Standardization of the Biocrystallization Method for Carrot Samples

ABSTRACT The growing organic market demands methods which can describe food quality within the organic system (authentication). Several studies indicate that methods, such as the biocrystallization method, are suitable for this question. More or less reproducible crystallization patterns emerge when an aqueous dihydrate cupric chloride solution with plant extract is crystallized on a glass dish. The emerging patterns are characteristic of sample material. To be applied in routine analysis for example for authentication of organic products, the biocrystallization method has to be standardized. After the laboratory process was documented and a computerized pattern evaluation tool was further developed and applied, the method was standardized for selected carrot samples, which is described here. For standardization, several factors of influence were tested and the reproducibility between three different laboratories in the EU was investigated. The method is able to differentiate patterns from samples from different farming treatments and processing steps as statistically significant. This represents a significant step forward beyond the state of the art.

The challenge of evaluating health effects of organic food; operationalisation of a dynamic concept of health.

The health benefits of consuming organically produced foods compared with conventional foods are unclear. Important obstacles to drawing clear conclusions in this field of research are (1) the lack of a clear operational definition of health and (2) the inability to distinguish between different levels of health using valid biomarkers. In this paper, some shortcomings of the current definition of health are outlined and the relevance of integrating a more dynamic and functional component is emphasised, which is reflected by the ability to adapt. The state of health could then be determined by challenging an individual with some form of stressor and by subsequent quantification and evaluation of the coherence in recovery of various physiological processes and parameters. A set of relevant parameters includes the activity of the immune system and the activity of the autonomous nervous system. A good recovery towards homeostasis is suggested to reflect a qualitatively good state of health. Furthermore, it would enable objective evaluation of health-optimising strategies, including the consumption of organically produced foods that aim to strengthen health.

A new food quality concept based on life processes

Publisher Summary Consumers expect organic producers to provide healthy and tasty products. In the conventional vision, product quality is mainly based on external, nutritive, and sensory properties and is strongly directed by traders and trends. Besides tastiness and ripeness, organic consumers expect products to have properties such as “vitality” and “coherence”, which are not easy to define, and thus to explain and transfer. The new quality concept was developed in cooperation with other research members of the international research association “Organic Food Quality and Health” [“FQH”]. The research association was established to promote research into the health effects of good quality organic food and to develop parameters for quality assessment. Many organically grown products have won the acclaim of the best chefs. Growers know that good taste depends on moderate fertilization and yield, careful ripening and freshness. Among conventional producers, the need to cut costs has prompted concessions to be made with respect to ripening and freshness. In an effort to cut the cost price, organic agriculture, too, is moving in the direction of higher fertilization, higher yields, earlier harvests, long trade chains, and extended storage. Farmers, growers, and traders are exploring the extent to which they can realize the economies without excessively compromising quality.

Standardization and performance of a visual Gestalt evaluation of biocrystallization patterns reflecting ripening and decomposition processes in food samples

The biocrystallization method is based on the phenomenon that additive-specific, dendritic crystallization patterns emerge when an aqueous dihydrate cupric chloride solution with additives is crystallized on a glass plate. The patterns reflect physiological processes like ripening and decomposition and are applied in differentiating food samples according to feeding regime, production system and degree of processing. The method has been used for decades in organic food quality assessment from an ontological holistic stance. The patterns are evaluated visually and by means of computerized image analysis. The present study describes the development of the visual evaluation from a morphological description of structural features towards the perception of a Gestalt, a salient, coherent ‘meaningful-whole’, which complies more closely with the pattern formation principle of the method. The methodology was standardized according to ISO-Norms 11035 and 8587 for sensory analysis of food products, adapted for use in the visual evaluation of biocrystallization patterns. Two Gestalts, ‘Ripening’ and ‘Decomposition’, reflected in biocrystallization patterns from diverse agricultural products were characterized, trained on and examined. Based on the statistical evaluation, it is concluded that the panel has become reliable and appropriate for ranking biocrystallization patterns according to the intensity of the two Gestalts. The developed level of Gestalt evaluation of biocrystallization patterns provides a basis towards qualitative interpretative judgements on the food quality of a product relating to quality concepts based on plant physiological processes.