and fiber as well as minor nutrients as vitamins and trace
elements. These products should also be superior in taste,
flavor and texture. Thirdly, as consumer behavior is changing
constantly just as society is, people also tend to favor
prepackaged food for convenient preparation and food
with a long shelf life. Allergens, contaminants and residues,
trans-fatty acids, genetically modified organisms (GMO)
are, for the consumer, catch words that are generally
regarded as designating undesired components in food
but unfortunately cannot be totally avoided by the manufacturers.
Although these undesired components bear with
them an underlying risk, avoiding microbial contamination
is a far more important issue in ensuring food safety and
food quality (WHO, 2002). All these factors add up to an
ideal concept of food quality as presented in Fig. 1. At
the very least, effort has to be expended on maximizing
nutritional value and food safety but the economic success
of a product is surely also affected by other factors like
(irrational) consumer expectations. Additionally, as nutritional
research is gaining in importance, new analytical
methods enable on the one hand the analysis of biochemical
pathways of minor food ingredients which can be considered
to have positive effects for humans (e.g., isoflavones