With the Science of Pie coming up in just a few weeks, we’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about baked goods. And one ingredient in particular has really captured our imagination—the egg! In the realm of baked goods, eggs are highly revered for their binding…
Wow! Eggless baking has always been a challenge for me, especially when trying to produce a birthday cake during lent.
(Source: scienceandfooducla)
How Did They Do It?
Last week a colleague brought into work a bag of Lay’s Kettle Cooked “40% Less Fat” potato chips. (Unlike the pictured bag, these were the “applewood smoked BBQ” variety; although I usually prefer plain with just a little salt, they were very tasty.) Chip production is a mature technology. Ideafinder.com relates that they were first made by Native American chef George Crum in 1853. So how did they now achieve a 40% reduction in fat content without an appreciable difference in taste? Mind, the package indicates that they are “kettle cooked,” not baked.
I wrote the Frito-Lay people and they responded that “(t)he chips have a shorter frying time followed by a drying step that removes the excess surface oil.” Somehow I suspect that the application of the principle is a bit more complex. “Drying step?” Oils don’t evaporate, and the fragility of chips would seem to prohibit the application of force during a draining process. Nor can I imagine a solvent removal on a food product with minimal additional processing.
The wonders of science.
First things first: a BIG welcome to all you new followers and an even bigger thank you to all of you for sticking around while I was away. I promise there will be plenty of new posts here at Bite-Sized Biology!
Here’s something awesome you might have missed these last few months: a series of food science lectures at UCLA
Oil and water - or at least cocoa butter and really small drops of juice- DO mix!. These are the things that I find mind blowing.
Substituting Fruit Juice Halves the Fat in Chocolate
It may not make chocolate one of your five a day - but scientists have found a way to replace up to 50 percent of its fat content with fruit juice. Univ. of Warwick chemists have taken out much of the cocoa butter and milk fats that go into chocolate bars, substituting them with tiny droplets of juice measuring under 30 microns in diameter.
They infused orange and cranberry juice into milk, dark and white chocolate using what is known as a Pickering emulsion. Crucially, the clever chemistry does not take away the chocolaty mouth-feel given by the fatty ingredients.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/substituting-fruit-juice-halves-fat-chocolate
(via eatgeekstudy)
Just deal. Fish Bladders? They mean isinglass. Red Food coloring? Cochineal is historically an important source of red in many foods but have you looked at the price recently? It isn’t even the source of red in Campari anymore. Gelatin? Duh. If this came as a surprise you’re not spending enough time in the kitchen. And Item 2? Inexcusable. The castorea described is from a reference made by Pliny almost two millennia past. The castorea used in food is from a plant native to North America.
Click the photo to link to the article.
![The Science Behind the Cinnamon Challenge
What is the Cinnamon Challenge?
The Cinnamon Challenge is pretty simple. All you need is a tablespoon of ground cinnamon, a webcam and a total disregard for self-preservation. If you can eat the cinnamon without aid – no water, no applesauce – you win.
Why is cinnamon so hard to swallow?
The spice that magically transforms dough and sugar into a sticky bun is actually ground up tree bark, which means we’re talking about a lot of water-resistant cellulose. And according to retired physical chemist Vince Calder, the rest is “a mixture of volatile organic compounds, a major component being [cinnamaldehyde]*, which is not very water soluble.”
Is the Cinnamon Challenge dangerous?
In a word, yes. Coating your tongue, gums and throat with moisture-slaying dust is a little like greeting a sandstorm with an open mouth. Without lubrication (saliva), you can’t perform deglutition (swallowing). And if you can’t swallow right away, eventually, you’ll have to breathe.
This is where the Cinnamon Challenge gets dangerous. Panic transmogrifies your breaths into gasps. And if you thought cinnamon was rough on the palate, imagine what it’ll do to your pretty pink lungs.
The body doesn’t take kindly to massive amounts of foreign material gumming up its alveoli – the tiny sacs in mammal lungs that exchange Carbon Dioxide for Oxygen. Once inside, the body treats cinnamon like an invading army and fights it with inflammation. This can cause pneumonia. Long-term, it can mean heavy scarring or reduced lung capacity
Still feeling spicy?
In 2011, the American Association of Poison Control Center’s National Poison Data System recorded 51 calls regarding teens and cinnamon. As of the end of March 2012, the AAPCC is already up to 139. Which means kids are still doing it, despite more than enough evidence to suggest cinnamon swallowing is one of the more idiotic fads you can get into – not the least of which are literally hundreds of thousands of videos that show it to be nearly impossible.
So let’s add another reason to stay away. Liver damage. Cinnamon contains a chemical compound called coumarin that, when ingested in large quantities, can cause liver damage in particularly sensitive individuals. Sie Germans even considered regulating coumarin levels in Christmas cookies. (Worse off are rats and mice – they metabolize coumarin differently than us, producing cancer.)
Continue Reading](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2tadcb3Iu1r2zmv6o1_500.jpg)
The Science Behind the Cinnamon Challenge
What is the Cinnamon Challenge?
The Cinnamon Challenge is pretty simple. All you need is a tablespoon of ground cinnamon, a webcam and a total disregard for self-preservation. If you can eat the cinnamon without aid – no water, no applesauce – you win.
Why is cinnamon so hard to swallow?
The spice that magically transforms dough and sugar into a sticky bun is actually ground up tree bark, which means we’re talking about a lot of water-resistant cellulose. And according to retired physical chemist Vince Calder, the rest is “a mixture of volatile organic compounds, a major component being [cinnamaldehyde]*, which is not very water soluble.”
Is the Cinnamon Challenge dangerous?
In a word, yes. Coating your tongue, gums and throat with moisture-slaying dust is a little like greeting a sandstorm with an open mouth. Without lubrication (saliva), you can’t perform deglutition (swallowing). And if you can’t swallow right away, eventually, you’ll have to breathe.
This is where the Cinnamon Challenge gets dangerous. Panic transmogrifies your breaths into gasps. And if you thought cinnamon was rough on the palate, imagine what it’ll do to your pretty pink lungs.
The body doesn’t take kindly to massive amounts of foreign material gumming up its alveoli – the tiny sacs in mammal lungs that exchange Carbon Dioxide for Oxygen. Once inside, the body treats cinnamon like an invading army and fights it with inflammation. This can cause pneumonia. Long-term, it can mean heavy scarring or reduced lung capacity
Still feeling spicy?
In 2011, the American Association of Poison Control Center’s National Poison Data System recorded 51 calls regarding teens and cinnamon. As of the end of March 2012, the AAPCC is already up to 139. Which means kids are still doing it, despite more than enough evidence to suggest cinnamon swallowing is one of the more idiotic fads you can get into – not the least of which are literally hundreds of thousands of videos that show it to be nearly impossible.
So let’s add another reason to stay away. Liver damage. Cinnamon contains a chemical compound called coumarin that, when ingested in large quantities, can cause liver damage in particularly sensitive individuals. Sie Germans even considered regulating coumarin levels in Christmas cookies. (Worse off are rats and mice – they metabolize coumarin differently than us, producing cancer.)
(via eatgeekstudy)
Mrs. Prof opening the door after being out of town for a week.
Yay!!
Making some fake egg yolks with @harlanturk
Final grade at Cal Poly and graduate cumulative gpa!!! 😄👍🎓 #calpolyslo #graduation #cpslo #calpolyproud #aged
Like American history and political theory? Interested in the American Founders? Want to double-check the reasoning of Justices Scalia and Thomas?
Well, now you can check out more than 100,000 documents written by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin, thanks to this very cool project by the National Archives.
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry — who doesn’t represent my district but apparently loves to send me email anyway — is determined to get...
I’m excited to announce that next month I’ll be joining The Atlantic with the somewhat intimidating...
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