A new post “Forays in Fermentation” from Jeremy at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog, via Research Blogging highlights two recent papers on fermentation that go beyond the usual beer/wine paradigm that I see in some students that choose our fermentation option.
The papers are
- Nout, M. (2009). Rich nutrition from the poorest – cereal fermentations in Africa and Asia Food Microbiology DOI: 10.1016/j.fm.2009.07.002 [↩]
- Poutanen, K., Flander, L., & Katina, K. (2009). Sourdough and cereal fermentation in a nutritional perspective Food Microbiology DOI: 10.1016/j.fm.2009.07.011
We have used idli (rice & mung beans & a small amount of fenugreek) and injera (teff - Eragrostis teff) as demonstration fermentations in the Topics in Fermentation – Science of Baking class. They are quite interesting. The idli ferment smells for all the world like yoghurt, apparently from a colonization of lactic producing bacteria. We kicked off our injera by chewing some of the grain and returning it to the mix, giving an inocculum of acid forming bacteria [better not done immediately after cleaning your teeth] and amylase from saliva to provide the two essentials – fermentable sugars and fermentation organisms.
The paper by Nout looks like a good read.
Microscopy comes to Web 2.0
I have been looking for ways to streamline our experience of viewing the diversity and behavior of starch granules outside the traditional transmission microscope exercise we have done in Food Chem labs – most students, and I, who don’t use microscopes everyday, often have trouble setting them up, and as an instructor, with multiple microscopes in a lab, I don’t know if students are seeing what te ought to be.
A new development in clinical microscopy…
Breslauer, D., Maamari, R., Switz, N., Lam, W., & Fletcher, D. (2009) Mobile Phone Based Clinical Microscopy for Global Health Applications. PLoS ONE, 4(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006320
for adaptation to a mobile phone (or I guess, my FlipCam) would let us all see a share our visions of starch granules, and share in real time the excitement [well, I am a food chemist] of seeing starch granules literally explode when we douse them with 1 normal hydroxide.
For more see Dan Gorelick’s post at Science Planet , which I also found via my RSS feed from Research Blogging.
OSU