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Food is full of chemistry! Food chemists study and analyze molecules and their transformations in food. You need chemistry to explain why a banana turns brown, how broccoli turns yellow over time, why cinnamon tastes like cinnamon, and more.
Looking for a structured, guided introduction, why not consider our Food Chemistry Basics course?
Even though you can make a lot of different types of cheese from cow’s milk, at their core, they all work the same way. Whether it’s brie, a fresh herby cheese, mozzarella, Gruyere, Parmesan, Gouda, paneer, or Emmentaler, they all…
Any and all food is made up of countless different molecules. Whether it’s the molecules that give cinnamon its distinctive taste, or those that color your orange, yes, orange. There simply are too many to count, and studying them may…
Orange, purple, green, or bright red. You can find fruits and vegetables of just about any color out there. Some of them are very stable. Others disappear easily, or can even change color. Want to control the color of your…
Did your salad leaves turn yellow in the fridge? Did your green beans lose their bright green color while cooking? Or did you end up with some very pale cooked broccoli? Most natural colors, including green, aren’t very stable and…
Tried making light and fluffy wheat-free bread? Or accidentally over-kneaded your scones? If so, you’ve ‘met’ a unique group of proteins: gluten. These molecules can form amazing, elastic networks. We’ll have a look at how and when they do so!…
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 or apple, you’d better eat it. Leave it unattended for a couple of hours and you’ll get back to an unappetizing brown piece of fruit. Same for pears, avocados, potatoes and plenty of other fruits…
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…
Rock sugar, or rock candy, comes in many shapes and sizes. You might be familiar with the brightly colored version on a stick, you might regularly use it in your (savory) Asian recipes, or, you might use it to sweeten…
Making caramel, marshmallows, honeycomb, and most other sugar candies generally starts by boiling a sugar syrup. Often, you’ll find very detailed instructions for this step, having to boil it to a specific temperature or ‘stage’. Deviating from these precise instructions may…