- Email: [email protected]
A Field Guide to Bacteria
124
Book reviews
mendations for ADIs of food additives and recommendations on the flavouring agents considered. The two WHO publications are—as are other JECFA publications of monographs and reports in the technical report series on food additives—important contributions to the safe use of food additives. They are, as a matter of fact, the bible in the field of safe application and use. As such, they deserve to be widely consulted by all involved in food safety evaluation. This applies foremost to the food producers, but also to food regulatory agencies and universities. The consumer ought also to be aware of the immense amount of data on food safety issues accumulated in the publications, which, in spite of the purely scientific approach, can be consulted by everybody. The reader will get nonbiased information on the subject—not the worst offer to consider. You will not return empty-handed. Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +45-45-813936 doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.001
Food Processing Technology. Principles and Practice P.J. Fellows, CRC, Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge, England, 2002; xxxi+575 pages, soft cover; Woodhead Publishing, ISBN 1 85573 533 4, CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-0887-9, order no. WP0887; UK £35.00/ US $55.00/o55.00, [email protected] The author is a Director of Midway Technology and visiting fellow in Food Technology at Oxford Brookes University. The first edition of the volume was published in 1988. The present edition of 2002 is a reprint of the second edition of 2000. This edition was substantially revised, including a number of new chapters and additional materials added. New tables and illustrations have been included to provide additional information and updated description of technologies. All new developments have been fully referenced in every chapter, but there are naturally no references later than
1999. Useful glossary and survey of symbols and acronyms have been inserted in the very beginning, so nobody will miss it. The volume is a comprehensive standard introduction to a wide range of technologies used in food manufacture, from raw materials preparation to packaging, storage, and distribution. It reviews all the main technologies, covering the underlying theory, advantages and disadvantages, equipment, and principal applications, including the important aspects of the effects on sensory and nutritional properties of food. Throughout the volume, where applicable to the process in question, shaded boxes covering sample problem and the author’s calculations on the solution to sample problem (e.g., calculation of freezing time for 5-cm potato cubes, to give just one example) have been inserted. This is very useful for both technology students as well as persons responsible for the operation. Food Processing Technology. Principles and Practice is an essential text for students of food science, technology, nutrition, agriculture, and catering. To that extent, it has already found its way to the professionals in the food industry. It is highly recommended to order the volume. On the cover, the book claims to remain as the best single-volume introduction to food manufacturing technologies on the market. Well, this is not to hide one’s light under a bushel—anyway, one will not be disappointed by the information one can get. Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +435-45-813936 doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.002
A Field Guide to Bacteria Betsey Dexter Dyer, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2003, viii + 355 pages; ISBN 0-8014-8854-0 (paper), US$ 26.00, UK£ 16.50, www.cornellpress. cornell.edu The author is a professor of biology at the—as she herself says—small liberal arts college, Wheaton College, Norton, MA. She takes us, literally speaking,
Book reviews
at a tour of nature and introduces the reader, as in a ‘‘Lonely Planet’’ guide, not only to countrywide but globally visible parts of the invisible world. Let us quote from the introduction the following, which nicely covers the general approach of the field guide: ‘‘Although most people are aware that bacteria are all around us, few would guess that they produce such distinctive accessible signs. Whether you’re walking on the beach, visiting a zoo or a aquarium, buying groceries, looking for fossils, drinking beer, traipsing through a swamp, or cleaning scum from beneath a dripping outdoor faucet, you’re surrounded by bacterial field marks. You don’t need a laboratory or fancy equipment to find out what kind of bacteria are there—this guide will tell you how.’’ It certainly does. The first chapter on Ancient Hyperthermophiles and Thermophilic Green Nonsulfurs introduces the reader to the origin of life on Earth about 4 billion years ago. Exactly how life originated is a subject of great speculation, as the author says, but it is fascinating to read her explanation, with a comparison with life today at extreme environments, like hot springs having temperatures up to 93 jC. The text is supplied with illustrative pictures including, also in every chapter, boxes with summaries of field markers. The many field marks explained throughout the guide are excellently illustrated in a 32-page separate section, with 98 colour plates. As appetiser to the guide, let us randomly pick up some more of the many subjects explained. In Gamma and Delta Proteobacteria of Sulfur-Rich Environments, the reader, for example, learns about deep-sea symbiosis and is introduced to life as much as 3 miles below the ocean surface in dark icy water and how sulfur-oxidising communities decompose shipwrecks.
125
Two chapters are devoted to Cyanobacteria (‘‘blue-green algae’’), organisms that differ from other bacteria in that they possess chlorophyll. Their habitat in aquatic and terrestrial environments like buildings, works of art, rocks and cliffs dunes, and deserts is explained in a most engaging manner. Read how wind-swept icy glaciers become colonised with a picture of cyanobacteria-forming D-shaped holes in a glacier in Greenland. In Gram-Positive Bacteria of Foods and Drinks, the author explains field marks of bacteria in different foods such as the orange-red covering on some surface-ripened cheeses caused by Brevibacterium. In a very narrative style, she explains how production of beer may have evolved from very ancient times, and so on. A Field Guide of Bacteria is intended to be carried into the field by serious amateur naturalists, biology teachers at all levels, and also professional biologists who may appreciate the accessibility it affords to otherwise obscure organisms. The wealth of subjects touched upon makes the field guide kind of a reference book on ‘‘peculiar’’ microbial and other phenomena. What about the sociality of termites or fossil Cyanobacteria that covered the Earth until about 2 1/2 billions years ago? Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +45-45-813936
doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.003
Book reviews
mendations for ADIs of food additives and recommendations on the flavouring agents considered. The two WHO publications are—as are other JECFA publications of monographs and reports in the technical report series on food additives—important contributions to the safe use of food additives. They are, as a matter of fact, the bible in the field of safe application and use. As such, they deserve to be widely consulted by all involved in food safety evaluation. This applies foremost to the food producers, but also to food regulatory agencies and universities. The consumer ought also to be aware of the immense amount of data on food safety issues accumulated in the publications, which, in spite of the purely scientific approach, can be consulted by everybody. The reader will get nonbiased information on the subject—not the worst offer to consider. You will not return empty-handed. Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +45-45-813936 doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.001
Food Processing Technology. Principles and Practice P.J. Fellows, CRC, Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge, England, 2002; xxxi+575 pages, soft cover; Woodhead Publishing, ISBN 1 85573 533 4, CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-0887-9, order no. WP0887; UK £35.00/ US $55.00/o55.00, [email protected] The author is a Director of Midway Technology and visiting fellow in Food Technology at Oxford Brookes University. The first edition of the volume was published in 1988. The present edition of 2002 is a reprint of the second edition of 2000. This edition was substantially revised, including a number of new chapters and additional materials added. New tables and illustrations have been included to provide additional information and updated description of technologies. All new developments have been fully referenced in every chapter, but there are naturally no references later than
1999. Useful glossary and survey of symbols and acronyms have been inserted in the very beginning, so nobody will miss it. The volume is a comprehensive standard introduction to a wide range of technologies used in food manufacture, from raw materials preparation to packaging, storage, and distribution. It reviews all the main technologies, covering the underlying theory, advantages and disadvantages, equipment, and principal applications, including the important aspects of the effects on sensory and nutritional properties of food. Throughout the volume, where applicable to the process in question, shaded boxes covering sample problem and the author’s calculations on the solution to sample problem (e.g., calculation of freezing time for 5-cm potato cubes, to give just one example) have been inserted. This is very useful for both technology students as well as persons responsible for the operation. Food Processing Technology. Principles and Practice is an essential text for students of food science, technology, nutrition, agriculture, and catering. To that extent, it has already found its way to the professionals in the food industry. It is highly recommended to order the volume. On the cover, the book claims to remain as the best single-volume introduction to food manufacturing technologies on the market. Well, this is not to hide one’s light under a bushel—anyway, one will not be disappointed by the information one can get. Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +435-45-813936 doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.002
A Field Guide to Bacteria Betsey Dexter Dyer, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2003, viii + 355 pages; ISBN 0-8014-8854-0 (paper), US$ 26.00, UK£ 16.50, www.cornellpress. cornell.edu The author is a professor of biology at the—as she herself says—small liberal arts college, Wheaton College, Norton, MA. She takes us, literally speaking,
Book reviews
at a tour of nature and introduces the reader, as in a ‘‘Lonely Planet’’ guide, not only to countrywide but globally visible parts of the invisible world. Let us quote from the introduction the following, which nicely covers the general approach of the field guide: ‘‘Although most people are aware that bacteria are all around us, few would guess that they produce such distinctive accessible signs. Whether you’re walking on the beach, visiting a zoo or a aquarium, buying groceries, looking for fossils, drinking beer, traipsing through a swamp, or cleaning scum from beneath a dripping outdoor faucet, you’re surrounded by bacterial field marks. You don’t need a laboratory or fancy equipment to find out what kind of bacteria are there—this guide will tell you how.’’ It certainly does. The first chapter on Ancient Hyperthermophiles and Thermophilic Green Nonsulfurs introduces the reader to the origin of life on Earth about 4 billion years ago. Exactly how life originated is a subject of great speculation, as the author says, but it is fascinating to read her explanation, with a comparison with life today at extreme environments, like hot springs having temperatures up to 93 jC. The text is supplied with illustrative pictures including, also in every chapter, boxes with summaries of field markers. The many field marks explained throughout the guide are excellently illustrated in a 32-page separate section, with 98 colour plates. As appetiser to the guide, let us randomly pick up some more of the many subjects explained. In Gamma and Delta Proteobacteria of Sulfur-Rich Environments, the reader, for example, learns about deep-sea symbiosis and is introduced to life as much as 3 miles below the ocean surface in dark icy water and how sulfur-oxidising communities decompose shipwrecks.
125
Two chapters are devoted to Cyanobacteria (‘‘blue-green algae’’), organisms that differ from other bacteria in that they possess chlorophyll. Their habitat in aquatic and terrestrial environments like buildings, works of art, rocks and cliffs dunes, and deserts is explained in a most engaging manner. Read how wind-swept icy glaciers become colonised with a picture of cyanobacteria-forming D-shaped holes in a glacier in Greenland. In Gram-Positive Bacteria of Foods and Drinks, the author explains field marks of bacteria in different foods such as the orange-red covering on some surface-ripened cheeses caused by Brevibacterium. In a very narrative style, she explains how production of beer may have evolved from very ancient times, and so on. A Field Guide of Bacteria is intended to be carried into the field by serious amateur naturalists, biology teachers at all levels, and also professional biologists who may appreciate the accessibility it affords to otherwise obscure organisms. The wealth of subjects touched upon makes the field guide kind of a reference book on ‘‘peculiar’’ microbial and other phenomena. What about the sociality of termites or fossil Cyanobacteria that covered the Earth until about 2 1/2 billions years ago? Niels Skovgaard Jakob Knudsensvej 18, Birkerød 3460, Denmark E-mail address: [email protected] Tel./fax: +45-45-813936
doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2003.11.003