The Science of Food

Is 'pink slime' being unfairly demonised?

"Pink slime" may be off the menu for many US school children after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which provides a fifth of school meals in the US through its National School Lunch Program, yielded to a petition demanding the withdrawal of the meat product from the school menu.
However, the beef industry, the company that makes the product and campaigners against food contamination have fiercely defended the safety and value of the product, officially called "lean finely textured beef" (LFTB).
So what's going on? What is "pink slime", and is it being unfairly demonised? [MORE]

Vegetarian Cutlet: New Method to Prepare a Meat Substitute

ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2012) — It looks like a cutlet, it's juicy and fibrous like a cutlet, and it even chews with the consistency of a real cutlet -- but the ingredients are 100 percent vegetable. Researchers are using a new method to prepare a meat substitute that not only tastes good, but is also environmentally sustainable.

Meat production is complicated, costly and not eco-friendly: fatted animals have to consume five to eight kilos of grain just to generate one kilogram of meat. It would be simpler and more sustainable if one were to make cutlets out of seed -- without the detour through the animal's body. Impossible? Not entirely...{MORE}

Who Invented the Oreo? The Unsung Heroes of Cookie Design

The Oreo. "Ubiquitous, overlooked, and yet embodying the highest design standards in both form and function—are worthy of recognition as "humble" masterpieces." Compared to its lesser and now former competitor, the Hydrox cookie, the design "is the more American-looking of the two -- its even pattern, however dowdy, has an industrial, stamped-out quality. It might be said to combine homelike decoration with an American love of machine imagery, and in that combination lies a triumph of design." {MORE}

From supernova to supermarket: How NASA food science can benefit consumers

Lessons learned improving the quality and nutritional content of food for astronauts could open up opportunities for the food industry back here on earth, says Dr Michele Perchonok, manager of NASA's shuttle food system and advanced food technology project.

In this exclusive interview, Dr Perchonok explained that the food system will have to evolve if we are to successfully send humans to the planet Mars. [MORE]

Developing the NASA Food System for Long-Duration Missions. 2011. Maya Cooper, Grace Douglas, and Michele Perchonok Journal of Food Science March 2011 [Download article]

 

Freakonomics Radio: Waiter, There’s a Physicist In My Soup

In the first segment of a two-parter about food and food science; it’s also about why we eat what we eat, and how that may change in the future. The first episode takes a look at the “molecular gastronomy” movement, which gets a big bump in visibility next month with the publication of a mammoth cookbook called Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Its principal author is Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft who now runs an invention company called Intellectual Ventures.

In Part 2, we get out of the kitchen and take a broader look at the past, present and future of food science. (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the link in box at right or read the transcript here.) First, we hear from John Floros, a food scientist at Penn State who co-authored a paper on the history of food science. (Special thanks on this episode go to the Institute for Food Technology.) He explains why we have Napoleon Bonaparte to thank for canned food. He also explains why anyone who’s alive today might want to thank a food scientist.

Cornucopia - Prototypes and Concept Designs for a Digital Gastronomy

The Digital Fabricator is a personal, three-dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients. Its cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user’s favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate food combinations with sub-millimeter precision. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by the Fabricator’s chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

This and other "Digital Gastronomy" prototypes HERE 

More on food printing from BBC

Student Stories: Food Science grad started with Kellogg internship

If breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, then Agnes Lim is a very important person.

The Penn State Food Science major, who graduated from the College of Agricultural Sciences last spring, landed two internships with the Kellogg Company, the world's leading producer of cereal and other nutritious breakfast foods, in the fall of 2008 and summer of 2009. [MORE]

Mushrooms - A Good Source of Vitamin D

The Problem... Vitamin D Levels Are Too Low In Millions Of US Children, Latest Analysis Confirms.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2009) — Millions of children in the United States between the ages of 1 and 11 may suffer from suboptimal levels of vitamin D, according to a large nationally representative study published in the November issue of Pediatrics, accompanied by an editorial.[MORE]

A Solution... Light-zapped mushrooms filled with vitamin D - Bringing 'shrooms out of the dark packs them with sunshine nutrient 

Mushrooms may soon emerge from the dark as an unlikely but significant source of vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin that helps keep bones strong and fights disease. Researchers found that a single serving of white button mushrooms will contain 869 percent the daily value of vitamin D once exposed to just five minutes of UV light after being harvested.[MORE]

Similar to the way that humans absorb sunlight and convert it to vitamin D, mushrooms contain a plant sterol–ergosterol–that converts to vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Check out the resources below for more information on vitamin D.

The American Mushroom Institute (AMI) has information on Vitamin D and the latest research on increasing the amount in mushrooms here. 

And here's the data from Penn State University...Post-harvest Vitamin D Enrichment of Fresh Mushroom.

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]

Food Nanotechnology

The National Nanotechnology Initiative defines nanotechnology as “the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications.”

The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) has issued a Scientific Status Summary on potential applications of nanotechnology in the food industry. According to the Summary, nanotechnology as it applies to the food industry, may involve using biological molecules to detect food pathogens and other contaminants, to track food products, to develop controlled-release delivery of food ingredients such as flavors, antioxidants, and nutraceuticals. [MORE]

Is there a need for more safety information? This from an article in the March 2008 edition of Scientific American - "Do Nanoparticles in Food Pose a Health Risk?"

Also, FDA Readies for More ‘Nanoscale’ Challenges