The Chemistry Of Food and Cooking: No Muffin Is Too Tuffin
How can food’s energy content, nutrition, texture, taste etc. be explained in terms of the atomic, molecular and macromolecular structure of the food?
Food can be manipulated in many different forms. The manipulation of food and their recipes changes not only the physical structure of the food and the flavor of the food itself, but the molecular structure of the food changes too. Once we understand the changes being made on this level, we can better understand how carbs, proteins, and fats affect us, the consumer. Simple carbohydrates, most commonly found in unprocessed foods, can form as either single sugar molecules or two, glucose is a product of this and is a simple source of energy for the human body. Complex carbs contain more than two sugar molecules. They link together in such a way that makes them digestible (such as starch) or non-digestible (such as fiber). Proteins, belong to the macronutrient family and they can come in the form of enzymes, hormones, and the building blocks of protein are molecules that contain nitrogen known as amino acids. Some proteins sit inside your cell membranes pumping compounds in and out of the cell. Others attach themselves to nutrients or other molecules to transport them to distant parts of the body. Hemoglobin, which carries oxygen, is one such protein. Lipids (fats) are made up of Carbon Hydrogen and Oxygen. Fatty acids can be saturated or unsaturated, if fatty acids are unsaturated, their makeup is altered so the molecules in the lipid push apart, making it much more fluid and oily. Therefore, changing the physical appearance of the food it belongs to. Now that the basic building blocks of food are understood, we can better understand how changes in our carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, change what we see on the outside of our food.
How can we measure the qualities and desirability of a finished recipe both quantitatively and qualitatively in order to determine the success of our recipe experimentation?
After you have manipulated one variable of your food recipe, you can begin to create a test for the quality of your food by creating three or more versions of your finalized recipe and the changed variable. You can use people to taste your food and give you feedback based on your recipe, and ask the tess subjects specific questions about your food to give them an area to focus on.
This can be anything from the texture of your food to the sweetness, depending on what was manipulated. From this, you can take this data and compile it so that you can decide where the majority falls on the most desired food product. This would be your quantitative data. The success of your data is based on your original hypothesis and predictions for your tests. If the tests you conducted show popularity in the area you predicted, then your experiment is successful. But, if the popular majority on each tests goes against what you had originally predicted, the your experiment was unsuccessful, or does not accurately show how the manipulated ingredient changed the food. The overall desirability in your experiment is based on how you use the chemistry behind cooking and how you predict a specific ingredient or change in recipe will affect your food on the molecular level.
In what way(s) is cooking like doing science and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different?
In terms of the traditional methods of cooking, you follow a recipe, put various food ingredients together and you end up with a tasty product; usually nothing thinking too far into it. Of course when we cook food we might know what ingredients work well with one another and what doesn’t, but we may hardly ever take into consideration how the food breaks down in our bodies or how they can be improved.
In terms of food science, they are looking for how food works on a atomic level and how different bonds are formed within different types of food and how these types of food can then be altered. These two concepts correlate with each other because both a cook and a food scientist can find ways to improve a recipe. Both the food scientist and the cook discover new ways to create different products, the difference is that they research food on different levels. The cook while manipulating the same recipe as the scientist might only look on the surface of each ingredient, focusing on taste, texture, and appearance; while the scientist focuses on the molecular makeup of each ingredient, looking into how specific types of food bond with one another and affect the “genetic” makeup of the food and the physical chemistry.
Food can be manipulated in many different forms. The manipulation of food and their recipes changes not only the physical structure of the food and the flavor of the food itself, but the molecular structure of the food changes too. Once we understand the changes being made on this level, we can better understand how carbs, proteins, and fats affect us, the consumer. Simple carbohydrates, most commonly found in unprocessed foods, can form as either single sugar molecules or two, glucose is a product of this and is a simple source of energy for the human body. Complex carbs contain more than two sugar molecules. They link together in such a way that makes them digestible (such as starch) or non-digestible (such as fiber). Proteins, belong to the macronutrient family and they can come in the form of enzymes, hormones, and the building blocks of protein are molecules that contain nitrogen known as amino acids. Some proteins sit inside your cell membranes pumping compounds in and out of the cell. Others attach themselves to nutrients or other molecules to transport them to distant parts of the body. Hemoglobin, which carries oxygen, is one such protein. Lipids (fats) are made up of Carbon Hydrogen and Oxygen. Fatty acids can be saturated or unsaturated, if fatty acids are unsaturated, their makeup is altered so the molecules in the lipid push apart, making it much more fluid and oily. Therefore, changing the physical appearance of the food it belongs to. Now that the basic building blocks of food are understood, we can better understand how changes in our carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, change what we see on the outside of our food.
How can we measure the qualities and desirability of a finished recipe both quantitatively and qualitatively in order to determine the success of our recipe experimentation?
After you have manipulated one variable of your food recipe, you can begin to create a test for the quality of your food by creating three or more versions of your finalized recipe and the changed variable. You can use people to taste your food and give you feedback based on your recipe, and ask the tess subjects specific questions about your food to give them an area to focus on.
This can be anything from the texture of your food to the sweetness, depending on what was manipulated. From this, you can take this data and compile it so that you can decide where the majority falls on the most desired food product. This would be your quantitative data. The success of your data is based on your original hypothesis and predictions for your tests. If the tests you conducted show popularity in the area you predicted, then your experiment is successful. But, if the popular majority on each tests goes against what you had originally predicted, the your experiment was unsuccessful, or does not accurately show how the manipulated ingredient changed the food. The overall desirability in your experiment is based on how you use the chemistry behind cooking and how you predict a specific ingredient or change in recipe will affect your food on the molecular level.
In what way(s) is cooking like doing science and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different?
In terms of the traditional methods of cooking, you follow a recipe, put various food ingredients together and you end up with a tasty product; usually nothing thinking too far into it. Of course when we cook food we might know what ingredients work well with one another and what doesn’t, but we may hardly ever take into consideration how the food breaks down in our bodies or how they can be improved.
In terms of food science, they are looking for how food works on a atomic level and how different bonds are formed within different types of food and how these types of food can then be altered. These two concepts correlate with each other because both a cook and a food scientist can find ways to improve a recipe. Both the food scientist and the cook discover new ways to create different products, the difference is that they research food on different levels. The cook while manipulating the same recipe as the scientist might only look on the surface of each ingredient, focusing on taste, texture, and appearance; while the scientist focuses on the molecular makeup of each ingredient, looking into how specific types of food bond with one another and affect the “genetic” makeup of the food and the physical chemistry.