Darwinian evolution patterns in food products and beverages.
Although the development and survival of food products are regulated by mechanisms that bear little resemblance to those operating in the living world, their general evolutionary patterns share certain common features. These include punctuated equilibria, convergent evolution, the coevolution, the equivalence of symbiosis, and, rarely, even parasitism. The evolution of food products, like that of living organisms and other systems, is a nonlinear process. Consequently, its path can be affected not only by major events that drastically alter the environment but also by very minor events that may be unnoticeable at the time of their occurrence.
Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003.
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D000818:Animals; D001628:Beverages; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005524:Food Technology / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013045:Species Specificity