The Science of Food

The Physics of Spilled Coffee

Scientists face many obstacles on the path to greater knowledge. But new research suggests how to avoid one of the more common pitfalls: spilled coffee.

"I cannot say for sure if coffee spilling has been detrimental to scientific research to any significant extent," says study author Rouslan Krechetnikov, a mechanical engineer at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But it can certainly be disruptive for a train of thought."

Krechetnikov and his graduate student Hans Mayer decided to investigate coffee spilling at a fluid dynamics conference last year when they watched overburdened participants trying to carry their drinks to and fro. They quickly realized that the physics wasn't simple. Aside from the mechanics of human walking, which depends on a person's age, health, and gender, there is the highly involved science of liquid sloshing, which depends on a complex interplay of accelerations, torques, and forces.     

{Let's not forget the physical characteristics of the fluid e.g. temperature and viscosity. Perhaps there are produce development applications for convenience beverages designed to be consumed on the go!}

What Does Sweetness Sound Like?

Charles Spence is multisensory researcher in London, who has been messing around with how sounds modify flavor. “We’ve shown that if you take something with competing flavors, something like bacon-and-egg ice cream, we were able to change people’s perception of the dominant flavor—is it bacon, or egg?—simply by playing sizzling bacon sounds or farmyard chicken noises.”
This might sound crazy, but the otherworldly ice cream makes one thing clear: The sound of food matters. So does the sound of the packaging and the atmospheric sounds we hear when we’re eating. We’re all synesthesiates when we sit down to dinner. [MORE]

Avalanche research aids search for tastier ice cream

Avalanche experts are helping to study how ice cream's structure changes when it is stored in a household freezer.

Samples of ice cream have been scanned with an X-ray machine more typically used to study the ice crystals which are key to avalanche formation.

Nestle is hoping to reveal the exact conditions under which ice crystals merge and grow.

When the crystals get big enough they change the texture of ice cream and alter how it feels when it is eaten.

The study of ice crystal formation has been carried out with the help of scientists at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, Switzerland. [MORE]

The Physics of Wine Swirling

Meet the new flavor of wine: fruity with a hint of fluid dynamics. Oenophiles have long gotten the best out of their reds by giving their glasses a swirl before sipping. A new study has revealed the physics behind that sloshing, showing that three factors may determine whether your merlot arcs smoothly or starts to splash.

Twirling a wineglass gently creates smooth arcs in the liquid that then circle, coating the sides of the glass. The gesture isn't just for appearances, says study co-author Martino Reclari, who studies fluid dynamics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Scientists and enthusiasts alike have long known that the swirling motion mixes oxygen into a red, enhancing its flavor. [MORE]

Science & Cooking Public Lectures

Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Science presents a public lecture series that discusses concepts from the physical sciences that underpin both everyday cooking and haute cuisine [errrr... now that would be food science!]. Each lecture features a world-class chef who visited and presented their remarkable culinary designs: Ferran Adria presented spherification; Jose Andres discussed both the basic components of food and gelation; Joan Roca demonstrated sous vide; Enric Rovira showed his chocolate delicacies; Wylie Dufresne presented inventions with transglutaminase. The lectures then use these culinary creations as inspiration to delve into understanding how and why cooking techniques and recipes work, focusing on the physical transformations of foods and material properties. Series accessible from YouTube and ITunes.

Burning issues in food science - Freezer burn!

The scope of the term freezer burn varies widely in both scientific and lay literature. In the narrowest use of the term, freezer burn describes only the loss of moisture (also termed as dehydration or desiccation) from the surface of frozen foods over time during frozen storage, yielding an opaque dehydrated surface. In the broadest use of the term, freezer burn describes both the dehydration and associated degradation in color, texture, and flavor that can occur on the surface of frozen foods, over time during frozen storage. These undesirable quality changes are exemplified by the toughening and discoloration of the surface of meat and poultry products, such as color changes in beef from red to brown and in skinless chicken breasts from pink to tan; the shriveling of the surface of frozen foods, shown in for frozen green beans; and the occurrence of lipid oxidation, which negatively impacts food flavor. Freezer-burned food is safe to consume from a microbial perspective, but is of poor eating quality. If the freezer-burned area is not too extensive, you can simply cut the affected portions off before or after cooking. [MORE]

The Scientific Spur of Pringles via AIR

This from the The Annals of Improbable Research on June 2nd, 2008

The sad yet, in its own commemorative way, triumphant news of the death of Frederick J. Bauer, the man who designed the packaging for Pringles potato chips (and whose ashes were buried in just such a Pringles can—the man ultimately consumed, in his own design) brings to mind two of the great scientific endeavors that involved Pringles potato chips. The chips are famous for being identically shaped — if you have mapped one Pringles chip, you have mapped them all.

Not long ago, Charles Spence of Oxford University and colleague Massimiliano Zampini “investigated whether the perception of the crispness and staleness of potato chips can be affected by modifying the sounds produced during the biting action.” For details, see our May 23, 2006 Guardian column, and for further details consult the special Fish & Chips issue of the Annals of Improbable Research (or just glance to your right here, to see Dr. Zampini—biting a Pringle—on the magazine cover).

Professor Spence will be appearing at the Cheltenham Science Festival this Wednesday night, June 4, discussing martinis. A gracious man, he will undoubtedly be amenable to discussing Pringles should you ask him. (The Ig Nobel Cabaret happens three nights later, on Saturday, June 7, also at the Cheltenham Science Festival. We do not know whether Professor Spence or his famous single Pringle will be present that evening.)

The other Pringles-related research recalled to mind if the study ” The Aerodynamics of Potato Chips” by Scott Sandford et al., published long ago in the very first issue of the Annals of Improbable Research, and reprinted in the book Best of Annals of Improbable Research. Dr. Sandford’s team did investigate the aerodynamic properties of Pringles, as well as of other chip types.

(Thanks to investigators Sally Shelton and Mary Kroner for bringing Mr. Baur’s historic passing to our attention.)

posted by Marc Abrahams in Improbable investigators, News about research

Breakthrough in salt technology

Two Indian scientists have developed round salt granules. Why is is this a food technology breakthrough? Cubical salt crystals have flat faces that can make pouring difficult.  The new crystals have more sides that allow the crystals to flow freely. Thus anti-caking additives that can cloud solutions are no longer needed [MORE]. 

What is salt? (Salt Institute) Sodium chloride or common salt is the chemical compound NaCl, composed of the elements sodium and chloride. Salt occurs naturally in many parts of the world as the mineral halite and as mixed evaporites in salt lakes [MORE].

Salt (or more correctly sodium) is a problem for some people. What are the technological options for reducing sodium levels in food while still making it taste good?  Experts suggest 1) use salt substitutes, such as potassium chloride, 2) replace salt wtih extracts, nucleotides, and monosodium glutamate, and 3) change the physical form of the salt so that it is more taste bioavailable and therefore less is needed [MORE].

Probing Question: How do microwaves cook food?

Think about it -- most people don't go through an entire day without using a microwave oven. But how does it work? What actually happens when a person "nukes" yesterday's pizza or pops a bag of popcorn in the microwave? And does the term "nuking" mean there's really radiation inside that box?
Acording to Penn State professor Swamy Anantheswaran, microwaves do most of their work on the water in food. "Water molecules constitute what are known as 'dipoles. A dipole is sort of like a bar magnet, with a positive pole and a negative pole. The oven's electromagnetic field oscillates as it passes through the water molecules in the food, changing the polarity of the field and causing the dipole/water molecules to flip themselves in order to be aligned with the new polarity." Heat is created by the resulting friction of the water molecules reversing direction millions of times a second [MORE].

Click here for interactive demonstration of how microwaves increase the energy of water molecules.

And check out Wikipedia's overview of the science and techology of microwave cooking.

Colloidal particles and the structures of foods

Foods, especially processed ones, are nearly all composed of small particles.  For example, milk is a suspension of particles of protein and fat suspended in an aqueous medium.  There are also huge numbers of emulsions, creams and textured products whose properties depend on the structures and interactions of various microparticles.  We may even regard the textures of fruits, vegetables and meats as arising from the interaction of particles (cells) within a matrix.  In many processed foods, the particles are rather small, having, typically, diameters of the order of 1 μm or less.  This brings them into the realm of what is known as ‘colloidal’ particles. [MORE]
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