Food

Display of various foods

Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth. Different species of animals have different feeding behaviours that satisfy the needs of their unique metabolisms, often evolved to fill a specific ecological niche within specific geographical contexts.

Humans eat various food substances for enjoyment and nutritional support. Omnivorous humans are highly adaptable and have adapted to obtain food in many different ecosystems. Historically, humans secured food through two main methods: hunting and gathering and agriculture. As agricultural technologies increased, humans settled into agriculture lifestyles with diets shaped by the agriculture opportunities in their geography. Geographic and cultural differences has led to creation of numerous cuisines and culinary arts, including a wide array of ingredients, herbs, spices, techniques, and dishes. As cultures have mixed through forces like international trade and globalization, ingredients have become more widely available beyond their geographic and cultural origins, creating a cosmopolitan exchange of different food traditions and practices.

The majority of the food energy required is supplied by the industrial food industry, which produces food with intensive agriculture and distributes it through complex food processing and food distribution systems. The food system has significant impacts on a wide range of other social and political issues including: sustainability, biological diversity, economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food.

Humanity has developed food preservation processes over the years, which make food more resistant to microorganism growth and slow the oxidation of fats, slowing down the decomposition and rancidification process.

Dependencies

• Cooking
  • Heat
  • Water
• Farming
• Fishing
• Gathering
• Hunting
  • Food
  • Sugar
    • Food preservation

See also

• Canning
• Medicine
• Pot-in-pot refrigerator
• Refrigeration

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Food, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Human_food, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).