The Science of Food

That Stinky Cheese Is a Result of Evolutionary Overdrive

Like many biologists, Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega searches the world for new species. But while other scientists venture into the depths of the ocean or the heart of the jungle, Dr. Rodríguez de la Vega and his colleagues visit cheese shops. “Every time we’re traveling internationally for a conference or something, we go specifically to the local cheese shop and say, ‘Give me the wildest blue cheese you have,’ ” said Dr. Rodríguez de la Vega, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. The cheese they buy is alive with fungi; indeed, many cheeses require a particular species of mold to properly ripen. To produce Roquefort blue cheese, for example, cheese makers mix Penicillium roqueforti into fermenting curds. The mold spreads throughout the cheese, giving it not only a distinctive blue color but also its (acquired) taste. [MORE]

How the US Military Helped Invent Cheetos

CHEESE PURISTS THE world over exalt their mummified milk. Their silken Goudas and savory Emmentalers. Their fetid fetas and squeaky queso frescos. Their moldy Roqueforts and runny Camemberts. These disks of rotted dairy are the pinnacle of thousands of years of experimentation that began when a herdsman carrying a ruminant’s stomach brimming with milk found that by journey’s end, he had a bag full of curds and whey.

Modern cheese making is a little more complicated, but the same principles apply. [MORE]

Cheese is the chameleon of the food world

. . . as well as one of its greatest delights. Fresh and light or funky and earthy, creamy and melty or crystalline and crumbly — no other food offers such a variety of flavors and textures.

But cheese is not just a treat for the palate: its discovery changed the course of Western civilization, and, today, cheese rinds are helping scientists conduct cutting-edge research into microbial ecology. [MORE]

The Science of Why Beer Is So Delicious

We know that yeasts produce the molecules that make ales and lagers so aromatic. But why do they do it?

Whether you're catching a whiff of banana from a tall glass of Hefewiezen or enjoying the subtle floral aromas in your favorite American IPA, you have yeast to thank for it. Yeast imbues beer with aromatic molecules that account for a great deal of its final flavor; almost all wild yeasts create these pleasant smells and tastes as they eat. Yet even though we know yeast is the reason beer tastes so good, we don't know exactly why it does it. But in a new study, a team of scientists led by Kevin Verstrepen, a yeast geneticist at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology and the Belgian University of Leuven, has showed why these tiny microbes make the flavors we savor.[MORE]

Can Biohackers Succeed At Making 'Real Vegan Cheese'?

A group  of Oakland, California-based biohackers believe they can create “real vegan cheese.” Their goal - a cheese made with no animal products that fully evokes the real dairy deal The team will insert bovine DNA — which is chemically synthesized and does not come from an animal — into living baker's yeast cells, temporarily turning the yeast into a so-called "protein factory" that produces milk protein.

The biohackers then extract that protein from the yeast and combine it with water, vegetable butter, and vegan sugar (instead of lactose), to make a milk substitute. Finally, this vegan milk can be turned into Real Vegan Cheese in the same way that normal cheese is produced from cow milk. The final food product will be a semi-hard cheese like Gouda. It will be totally vegan — and lactose-free. [MORE]

Yogurt Maker Chobani Sick Of Scientists Ruining Everything

Remove the lid from a cup of Chobani, and you may now be greeted by this printed tagline: "Nature got us to 100 calories, not scientists. #howmatters." This is an incredible work of PR, perhaps bested only by "a cup of yogurt won’t change the world, but how we make it might." The claim accomplishes the two-fold goal of being both demonstrably false and wildly offensive, to scientists, the IQ of consumers, and likely people working for Chobani. It is a minor miracle. Let us explore. [MORE]

... and the backpedaling

Antimicrobial edible films inhibit pathogens in meat

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Antimicrobial agents incorporated into edible films applied to foods to seal in flavor, freshness and color can improve the microbiological safety of meats, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

Using films made of pullulan -- an edible, mostly tasteless, transparent polymer produced by the fungus Aureobasidium pulluns -- researchers evaluated the effectiveness of films containing essential oils derived from rosemary, oregano and nanoparticles against foodborne pathogens associated with meat and poultry. [MORE]

Copper Nanoparticles Could Protect Food from Bacteria

July 24, 2013 — Microbes lurk almost everywhere, from fresh food and air filters to toilet seats and folding money. Most of the time, they are harmless to humans. But sometimes they aren't. Every year, thousands of people sicken from E. coli infections and hundreds die in the US alone. Now Michigan Technological University Jaroslaw Drelich has found a new way to get them before they get us. His innovation relies on copper, an element valued for centuries for its antibiotic properties. [MORE]

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]

Ancient Nubians Made Antibiotic Beer

Chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis, likely from a special brew of beer. The find is the strongest yet that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

“I’m going to ask Alexander Fleming to hand back his Nobel Prize,” joked chemist Mark Nelson, who works on developing new tetracyclines at Paratek Pharmaceuticals and is lead author of the paper published June in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/antibiotic-beer/#ixzz0ykbbxjqW