I scream, you scream, we all scream for . . . gelato? Frozen treats used to be a simple summertime pleasure, with the toughest choice being chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla. In many supermarkets today, the frozen dessert aisle is packed with options ranging from imported Italian hazelnut gelato and French grapefruit sorbet to Japanese green tea mochi.
Are all of these products simply ice cream with different names? Or is there a substantive difference between them?
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A compound found in green tea may trigger a cycle that kills oral cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone, according to Penn State food scientists. The research could lead to treatments for oral cancer, as well as other types of cancer.
Earlier studies had shown that epigallocatechin-3-gallate -- EGCG -- a compound found in green tea, killed oral cancer cells without harming normal cells, but researchers did not understand the reasons for its ability to target the cancer cells, said Joshua Lambert, associate professor of food science and co-director of Penn State's Center for Plant and Mushroom Foods for Health. The current study shows that EGCG may trigger a process in the mitochondria that leads to cell death. [MORE]
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Professor Emeritus Phil Keeney has been intimately linked with Penn State's Department of Food Science since its establishment in 1975. Now, an anonymous $1 million gift will ensure that his name is connected to the department's programs in perpetuity.
The donation will establish the Philip G. Keeney Food Science Department Head Excellence Fund. Proceeds from the endowment will be used at the discretion of the department head to support programs and new initiatives in food science research, extension and teaching. [MORE]
By Cade Metz Wired Magazine 09.19.14
Inside a squat building on San Francisco’s 10th Street, packed into a space that looks a lot like a high school chem lab, Hampton Creek is redesigning the food you eat. Mixing and matching proteins found in the world’s plants, the tiny startup already has created a reasonable facsimile of the chicken egg—an imitation of the morning staple that’s significantly cheaper, safer, and possibly healthier than the real thing—and now it’s working to overhaul other foods in much the same way.
....But [Dr. Gregg] Ziegler, the Penn State food scientist, is quick to say the difficulties facing this project shouldn’t be underestimated. Trying to physically redesign food is hard enough—when Roche cooked us an omelet at Hampton Creek, it came close to the feel and taste of a real egg without actually matching it—and modeling this kind of thing with software may be even harder. “The functionality of proteins depends not just on their chemical composition but also their physical structure, and I’m not sure that we know enough about what the desired compositions and structures are,” says Ziegler. “I don’t know that we’re quite at the stage of being able to do the same level of computation predictions you can do for electronics materials or other simpler materials.” It may even be easier, he says, to model medicines and predict their behavior. [MORE]
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. --The taste of common sugar substitutes is often described as being much more intense than sugar, but participants in a recent study indicated that these non-nutritive sugar substitutes are no sweeter than the real thing, according to Penn State food scientists.
In the study, participants compared the taste of non-nutritive sweeteners that are often used as low- or no-calorie sugar substitutes with those of nutritive sweeteners, such as sugar, maple syrup and agave nectar. The participants indicated they could perceive the non-nutritive sweeteners -- such as aspartame, marketed as NutraSweet; acesulfameK, often called AceK; and RebA, a compound found in the stevia plant -- at lower concentrations than real sugar, but the intensity of these sensations was no sweeter than sugar and other nutritive sweeteners.
"While you can detect non-nutritive sweeteners at lower levels than sugar, that doesn't really tell us anything about the perceived intensity of that sweetness," said John Hayes, assistant professor, food science and director of the Sensory Evaluation Center.[MORE]
Food scientists are working to block, mask and/or distract from bitter tastes in foods to make them more palatable to consumers, many of whom are genetically sensitive to bitter tastes, according to a new presentation at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® in New Orleans.
"Many factors go into why we eat what we do," said John Hayes, PhD, assistant professor of food science and director of the Sensory Evaluation Center at Pennsylvania State University, with taste consistently ranking as number one. There's also "a huge variability in how much bitterness people taste. If something is bitter you like it less and you eat it less." [MORE]
So Coke and Pepsi are rushing to remove (BVO) from their drinks in response to consumer pressure. Some of the campaigns are predictably in terms of the ingredient having non-food uses (a fire retardant) make it inappropriate to use in food. However CSPI and others point to reasonable toxicological concerns and it looks like BVO is on the way out.
What was BVO doing in drinks in the first place? Why would soda contain any vegetable oil and why would you brominate it? [MORE]
More on BVO from WebMD
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]
Penn State food science experts study why we love chips, chocolate and other famous Pennsylvania foods, and offer expertise to the state’s snack food industry.
Although the Steelers and Eagles didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year, Pennsylvania and Penn State will still be represented on game day — on your plate. And more likely than not, Penn State experts have had a hand in developing, or evolving, many of the Keystone State’s famous finger foods.
While Nittany Lion alumni will represent Penn State Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium, Pennsylvania food industries’ wares will be served at Super Bowl parties nationwide. Companies from around the commonwealth — referred to as the snack food belt — supply many of the Sunday afternoon munchies enjoyed while calling plays from the couch.
If your potato chips are from Utz, Middleswarth, Martin’s, Snyder’s of Hanover or Snyder of Berlin — just to name a few — the snack came from some region of Pennsylvania. [MORE]
No specific person has officially been credited with inventing ice cream. Its origins date back as far as 200 B.C., when people in China created a dish of rice mixed with milk that was then frozen by being packed in snow. The Chinese King Tang of Shang is thought to have had over ninety “ice men” who mixed flour, camphor, and buffalo milk with ice. The Chinese are also credited with inventing the first “ice cream machine.” They had pots they filled with a syrupy mixture, which they then packed into a mixture of snow and salt. [More]
Learn more about ice cream manufacturing at the Penn State Creamery web site.
