Bringing food chemistry to life

I thought I showcase some of the research work done by my colleagues in the Food Science and Crop Science departments at

Where possible the titles are linked to the abstracts. Depending on where you are you might be able to link through to the full text.

This is not all of them, but it will do for now.

Effect of Various Types of Egg White on Characteristics and Gelation of Fish Myofibrillar Proteins
Journal of Food Science
Volume 74, Issue 9, Date: November/December 2009, Pages: C683-C692
Angela Hunt, Jae W. Park, Akihiro Handa

Antimicrobial Efficiency of Essential Oil and Freeze–Thaw Treatments against Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica Ser. Enteritidis in Strawberry Juice
Journal of Food Science
Volume 74, Issue 3, Date: April 2009, Pages: M131-M137
J. Duan, Y. Zhao

Negative Roles of Salt in Gelation Properties of Fish Protein Isolate
Journal of Food Science
Volume 73, Issue 8, Date: October 2008, Pages: C585-C588
Y.S. Kim, J.W. Park

Storability of Antimicrobial Chitosan-Lysozyme Composite Coating and Film-Forming Solutions
Journal of Food Science
Volume 73, Issue 6, Date: August 2008, Pages: M321-M329
J. Duan, K. Kim, M.A. Daeschel, Y. Zhao

Ancient beer

From the “Sage of Discovery” a link about beer made with yeast extracted from 40 million year old amber.

http://sageofdiscovery.com/2009/11/02/fossil-fuels-offers-eocene-epoch-beer/

You can get it at http://www.fossilfuelsbrewingco.com/

Confirming one piece of the wisdom of Seinfeld via Neuroskeptic

As neuroskeptic asks “Are the benefits of coffee really due to the caffeine, or are there placebo effects at work?”

See the result via this paper and Neuroskeptic’s summary…   Harrell PT, & Juliano LM (2009). Caffeine expectancies influence the subjective and behavioral effects of caffeine. Psychopharmacology PMID: 19760283

“What’s grosser than gross? How ‘bout a 100-mile long wad of E. Coli-infested mucus?”

From “From Mauka to Makai” A science blog for the masses.

http://maukamakai.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/marine-mucilage-ick/

These marine mucilages, that “From Mauka to Makai” reports, have been seen in the Mediteranean since 1729, and are apparently made up of the kinds of seaweed/algal polysaccharides we commonly use as food ingredients – algins, agar, carrageenans, except, as we might figure the polysacchardes mats are home to a teeming population of microbes, some of which are plenty unfriendly.

Danovaro, R., Fonda Umani, S., & Pusceddu, A. (2009). Climate Change and the Potential Spreading of Marine Mucilage and Microbial Pathogens in the Mediterranean Sea PLoS ONE, 4 (9) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007006

The polymer makeup of the mucilages was amply reported in the citation in the 1995 paper by Gary Leppard in “Science of The Total Environment” Vol 165 Pages 103-131 “The characterization of algal and microbial mucilages and their aggregates in aquatic ecosystems” an this actually gives a nice rundown on the interactions of the polymers for students of algal polysaccharides. http://tinyurl.com/yzuycg6 It is about 5MB and takes a while to load.

Beating the teapot effect

Oregon’s Agricultural Progress articles…

Articles about our wheat and barley breeding activities.

Kernel Chemistry – wheat

Barley world

A new experience for me that’ll hopefully enhance the blog – a photo journalism workshop with National Geographic photographer Flip Nicklin

Telling stories with photographs – stay tuned for more.

Link sent by a former student – really amazing culinary art – and beautiful photography

http://luxirare.com/parfait/

Starting a class today – Food Polymer Science for graduate students.

Getting students engaged is a challenge – even at this level (MS & PhD candidates) – some of them are only doing the course for required credits. So what can we do?

Mano Singham in Liberal Education** rails against the traditional “rule-infested, punitive, controlling syllabus that is handed out to students on the first day of class“, claiming that what is missing is any mention of learning and any indication of the passion of the instructor for the subject matter [we hope the instructor has some passion]. Our formal syllabi here at Oregon State U do list anticipated learning outcomes, but what is missing is the first person-narrative of the instructors view of the subject in the context of food production, consumption, and we hope, the enjoyment of our food.

The Center for Teaching and Learning here at OSU has a summer workshop on a “living course” – a guide to creating a partially web 2.0 based class delivery mechanism. A key part of the development of a living course/syllabus was to create a first person course narrative as a welcome to students and as a way of bringing the subject to life from the start.

I have linked to the current course narratives for both the graduate food polymers course as well as my science of deliciousness course for any of you food science instructors out there who are interested. Comments are welcome.

FOOD POLYMERS narrative

FOOD CHEMISTRY – DELICIOUSNESS narrative

**Via TEACHING TIPS from the University of Hawaii’s Honolulu Community College.

Rye bread baked from a formula in Michel Suas’ “Advanced Bread and Pastry – A Professional Approach” from the San Francisco Baking Institute.

I am on vacation, but others are not…

A couple of good new posts at Khymos to keep you going.

http://blog.khymos.org/2009/09/11/too-many-new-books/

http://blog.khymos.org/2009/09/07/tgrwt-19-tomato-and-black-tea/

…and we should remember that. Except for foraged wild mushrooms, or wild caught fish, or hunted game, or handpicked wild backberries that turn into delicious pies [courtesy of my wife] pies made with farmed wheat for the flour…

Follow the “savory images” link below to see Ag in Oregon at its most picturesque!

Savory Images

“Featuring the bounty of Oregon agriculture—a reflection of the role Oregon State University’s agricultural research plays in sustaining our state’s rich farming heritage. The Savory Images photo exhibit opens August 2009 at the Murdoch Gallery at the LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University. It then begins a tour across the state and is available for month-long display during 2009-2010, free of charge“.

Photos are by award-winning photographer Lynn Ketchum and from the pages of the acclaimed magazine Oregon’s Agricultural Progress.

A wonderful exposition…

of the the variety and richness of agriculture and rural life in Oregon. The gallery is well worth a look. Lynn Ketchum works for Oregon State and has taken some shots in our labs. Look forward to more shots from Lynn of our bread and lab in the near future.

Mt Adams, Washington State from Gilliam County OR looking north across the Columbia River valley.

Photo Atribution – me.

“Malt is tricky, and sometimes gross. In my experience, the best you can hope for is vegemite, marmite, or some other yeast extract. If you have chocolate malt balls or some other malt based candy, those can be ground up and used as well”. Andrew Thaler

These “malt” sources don’t have active amylase enzymes – they at best would be an additional source of fermentable sugars and amino acids that would help yeast activity. They would not degrade the starch in the the processed cereals. The repeated extraction through the coffee maker would extract all [most of] the available simple fermentable sugars, a fair amount given that many of these cereals were probably steamed during processing with some thermal starch degradation. The dried fruits would be great sources of fermentable sugars, not just a flavor modifiers.

So what could he do to make this process somewhat more efficient?

If the ship’s bakery had malted barley flour – with active amylases that’d be best – that’s probably unlikely, the ship’s chef/baker would probably use a bread flour that would possibly have malted barley flour added at the mill. This is usually a vanishingly small amount of malt flour, because in breadmaking you only want extremely limited starch digestion for just enough fermentable sugars for the yeast. Adding some of the bread flour (check the label for the malted barley flour – e.g General Mills’ Better for Bread has it – just an example, not an endorsement) and maybe having longer period of digestion for the mash. This would mean that the coffee maker hotplate might be a bit warm and thermally kill the amylases so if you could keep the mash at about 60 deg C** this would maximize the beta-amylase activity and create a wort with the maximum fermentables possible with this crude, but brave, method.

**This should be possible on any modestly sized oceanographic research vessel.

Thanks BarelyWorld