| Word | Description |
| Aw | Available water |
| Abalone | Refers to a snail-like shelsish (gastropod mollusc) of the Genus Haliotis which is found particularly in waters around Australia, and also Japan, California, Channel Islands and France. The meat is canned and frozen. |
| Abbe Refractometer | see Refractometer |
| Absinthe | Green liqueur which is prepared from oils of wormwood, angelica, anise and Marjoram. It is toxic and the manufacture has been banned in many countries. The toxic principle has been oil of thujol, which has been cumulative, and hass been a cerebral convu |
| Absorptiometer | An instrument used to measure the amount of light passing through a solution. As coloured substances absorb light the instrument can be used to measure the amounts of such subtances in solutions. |
| Absorption | The active taking up of digested food nutrients through the villi of the small intestine into blood capillaries. Absorption is also a more general process in which substances, electromagnetic radiation or energy are taken up by other substances. |
| Accelerated Freeze Drying | Freeze drying carried out in conditions which speed up the process, e.g. with heating. |
| Acceptance-preference Test | Sensory analysis in which the Acceptability or desirability of the food product is determined. These kinds of test are commonly used with consumers. |
| Acesulfames | Also called acesulphames. Class of artifical, non-nutritive sweeteners from oxathiazinone. The potassium salt, called acesulfam-K, has been 200 times as sweet as sucrose; not metabolised and excreted unchanged; good self life. |
| Acetate, Active | Refers to the forms in which the acetyl radical, CH2CO-, gets transferred from one compound to another, as the acetyl-coenzyme A complex (coenzyme A). The metabolism both of glucose and of fats involves the formation of active acetate. |
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