Bringing food chemistry to life

I don’t need ANY bad news about my espresso coffee! From FECYT – Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, via “Eurekalert” Here is their press release… “Coffee in capsules contains more furan than the rest” Coffee in capsules contains more furan than the rest, although the levels are still within safe health limits. “Preparing a [...]

Once again food gums come to the rescue of our building project. This time – sodium alginate. Here an I applying a slurry of a 2% (w/w) alginate solution containing peat moss, compost, and grass seeds to a newly exposed cut at the back of our driveway. The alginate forms a gel slowly in-situ using [...]

Congratulations to Subha Ranjan Das an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry @ Carnegie Mellon University For The Kitchen Chemistry Sessions and The taste of Chemistry Lots of inspiration and resources available through these links Chemistry in the Kitchen a forum The Kitchen Chemistry Sessions A Facebook page CMU’s Magazine Our 2011 FST 425 [...]

Can’t show the students for administrative reasons, but we had a good and educational time once again. Bringing you highlights from the second iteration of  ”BRINGING FOOD CHEMISTRY TO LIFE”. >>><<< DISPERSED SYSTEMS: Mayonnaise and egg white foams, and ways of messing them up that were instructive for the chemistry lesson. POLYMERS 101: Using the [...]

These 2 comments were posted regarding the recent post on glycosidic bond representation. Almost since the year dot sugar chemists have indulged themselves in bond representations with right angle bends in them and ever since I started teaching on the BSc Food science course at London South Bank University in the 1970s undergraduates have, at [...]

Final lab session of our Food Chemistry class this year. An experience of the effects of pH on browning reactions. We make a variant of traditional soft pretzels, using a rather leaner formula than often used [for us no milk or eggs]. The loss of lactose from the milk and glucose from the egg might [...]

Beating the teapot effect Authors: C. Duez, C. Ybert, C. Clanet, L. Bocquet (Submitted on 17 Oct 2009) Cyrill Duez’s team show that superhydrophobic surfaces stop the tea from wetting the inner surface of the spout and pretty much stop the dripping. Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for the UK Telegraph newspaper, says this backs up [...]

Fabulously fun, but serious thought has gone into this… [See the BFCTL August24 post "Spot the deliberate error" for a commentary on the method] From The Science Creative Quarterly at the Univ. of British Columbia. click here… HOW TO BREW BEER IN A COFFEE MAKER, USING ONLY MATERIALS COMMONLY FOUND ON A MODESTLY SIZED OCEANOGRAPHIC [...]

“The amazing structural properties of plants” – “Via “ScienceWise“  at the Australian National University. I came across this when I was searching for the strategies used by other people and institutions regarding efforts to expand the public awareness of science. It’s a little old, from February 2008, but I thought it of interest. Plant cell [...]

On Nova Science Now on PBS last night they reported about work studying the contents of small liquid inclusions in New Mexico’s Saledo salt beds that were  laid down in the Permian era 250 million years ago. The report showed fascinating electron micrographs of mats of cellulose in the inclusions – hi-fiber salt  no less! [...]