Ever wondered why/how a banana browns, how a piece of meat gets those classic grill marks, why a broccoli is green (and can turn yellow or mushy green), why an orange is orange or how yeast ferments? All of those are questions that can be answered using food chemistry.
Food chemistry studies and analyzes molecules and their transformations/reactions in food.
However, before you can start doing these more complex analyses on your food, it’s useful to have your basics sorted. The articles you will find here do just that.
Considering doing a mini course on food chemistry? We’re offering one right here!
If you google vinegar + eggs, you’ll find plenty of articles discussing: “why to use vinegar when poaching eggs” OR “how to dissolve eggshells with vinegar”. But none explaining why vinegar added to raw egg whites changes the texture of…
One of the most important properties of food products is their pH-value. It gives producers an insight into the shelf life of a product, how stable it might be over time, and how it reacts with other products. It’s what…
Once you’ve peeled your banana, you’d better eat it. Leave it unattended for a couple of hours and you’ll get back to an unappetizing brown banana. Same for apples, pears, avocados, and plenty of other fruits (and some more vegetables).…
Making candy is often described as a science, requiring thermometers to boil that sugar syrup to the exact right temperature. Alternatively, you can cook the syrup to a prescribed stage, “cook to hard crack”, which can be daunting. If you…
If you think of chemistry, you might be thinking of a lab, with people wearing white lab coats, where lots of complicated, maybe even dangerous chemicals are being mixed and tested by experienced chemists. You might almost forget that your…
You might be familiar with the brightly colored version on a stick. Or you might regularly use it as a core ingredient in your (savory) Asian recipes. Or, you might use it to sweeten your tea. Rock sugar, or rock…
Whenever making caramel, marshmallows, honeycomb, or most other sugar candies you’ll need to bring a sugar syrup to the boil. Often, you’ll find very detailed instructions on just how to boil that syrup. You may be told to cook until a…
Would you buy a raw brown steak? What about a blue apple? Green coconut flakes? Or a grey orange? Probably not. If the color of food isn’t ‘right’ consumers won’t buy it anymore, even if it is perfectly safe and…
The ‘secret’ behind that yellow dal, yellow rice, or beautifully colored curry? A decent chance that it’s turmeric. A mere teaspoon can help color a sauce or dish and it’s not just used in savory dishes. In some countries it…
Have you ever made a beautiful pesto blend, full of basil flavour, with a vibrant green colour, that didn’t look all that vibrant anymore the day after? Or left that peeled banana or sliced apple for a few hours to…
Red cabbage juice changes colour when you add a squirt of lime juice or a spoonful of baking soda. Baking powder causes your cake to rise beautifully in the oven. You can ‘cook’ fish by adding lemon and lime juice,…
Only a few centuries ago, European (and likely many others) seamen died by the dozens during months long sea voyages to the East. Trips to the East, essential for European traders to get those beloved spices, fabrics and other trading…