Wolfing Down Food Science

Send us Fan Mail Gingerbread has a long and storied history.  In fact, it may have been the inspiration for the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel.  In this episode, we discuss types of gingerbread, a bit of its chemistry, and then get sidetracked with the great molasses flood of 1919.  If you are in the area, check out the gingerbread competition going on at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville,...

Send us Fan Mail In this Food Science by the Fireside, we talk about how to avoid two disasters: dry turkey and (even worse) food poisoning.  Special guest and food safety expert Dr. Ben Chapman joins us to discuss how to properly prepare a turkey using sous vide. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/import/Salmonella-Compliance-Guideline-SVSP-RTE-Appendix-A.pdf Got a questions for us?  E...

Send us Fan Mail How did PSL get started?  Did you know you can get PSL Ramen noodles!?  Yes all the fascinating information and more about pumpkin spice latte, the flavor marketing phenomenon. Join us for a quick chat! Referenced articles https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2018/10/31/inside-the-600-million-pumpkin-spice-industrial-complex/?sh=5f81c71e1b95 https://www.bhg.com/recipes/seaso...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know that a carrot and a glass of milk have about the same amount of water?  So why is the texture so different?  We jump into how the structures in these foods create incredibly different structures. Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfingdownfoodscience@gmail.com Please take a minute to help others find our podcast by leaving a rating and comment on your podcasting...

Send us Fan Mail Professor and evolutionary biologist, Chris Vineyard, joins us on the podcast today to talk about the evolution of chewing and how that relates to our texture preferences. We learned about how jaws have evolved and if some of our human tendencies spread to other species as well. Chewing goes back for billions of years and Chris has a look into the timeline.  Got questions or comme...

Send us Fan Mail Texture is iconic.  It's why we love some foods and reject others.  Texture is vitally important to make gluten free and meatless meat products acceptable to the general public.  One of the ways we get to these textures is by forming long fibers or by adding air to make puffy products.  One thing that may get missed is that texture can make foods LOUD. Humans tend love loud f...

Send us Fan Mail The dairy aisle is one big happy family of milk with all kinds of textural variations. Yogurt, cheese, and ice cream are all offspring of a single ingredient: milk! There are great textural transformations that happen when food scientists go through the process of turning milk into these three different food products. This episode, we talk about these wondrous milk derivatives and...

Send us Fan Mail Ever think about how much water could be in any given food? In fact, water concentration can make or break some of our favorite food textures! Food scientists are always interested in how much water is in our foods and how its presence affects textures like gelatin gels and taffy. TRANSCRIPT:  Click here! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfingdownfoodscience@gmail.com Please...

Send us Fan Mail We chewed Allen’s brain on his expertise in texture and oral processing in this conversation. Dr. Foegeding’s research includes understanding which food structures create an optimal texture experience and how we perceive that texture when we are breaking down these food structures.  What textures do we like the best? Are companies generating the next wave of food texture preferenc...

Send us Fan Mail It's starting to cool off into fall here in North Carolina and that gets us thinking about campfires and s'mores.  We discuss the ingredients of marshmallows and how those ingredients give us that bouncy texture and delicious stringiness after a campfire treatment Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfingdownfoodscience@gmail.com Please take a minute to help others fi...

Send us Fan Mail We all have textural preferences when it comes to our food.  Find out the teams preferences for texture in today's episodes.  Keith talks about slimy food experiences in Spanish !  We get into textural contrast in foods .  Followed by how in the world we study structure in foods. Season 2 is off and running! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfingdownfoodscience@gmail.co...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Williams, a student at NC State University, gives us a look at alternative protein sources through the lens of food science.   She will explore chemistry, microbiology, engineering and the business aspects of alternative proteins over the next five summer shorts episodes! Keith, Paige, and Teresa will be back after a short break! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfing...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Williams, a student at NC State University, gives us a look at alternative protein sources through the lens of food science.   She will explore chemistry, microbiology, engineering and the business aspects of alternative proteins over the next five summer shorts episodes! Keith, Paige, and Teresa will be back after a short break! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfing...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Williams, a student at NC State University, gives us a look at alternative protein sources through the lens of food science.   She will explore chemistry, microbiology, engineering and the business aspects of alternative proteins over the next five summer shorts episodes! Keith, Paige, and Teresa will be back after a short break! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfing...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Williams, a student at NC State University, gives us a look at alternative protein sources through the lens of food science.   She will explore chemistry, microbiology, engineering and the business aspects of alternative proteins over the next five summer shorts episodes! Keith, Paige, and Teresa will be back after a short break! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfing...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Williams, a student at NC State University, gives us a look at alternative protein sources through the lens of food science.   She will explore chemistry, microbiology, engineering and the business aspects of alternative proteins over the next five summer shorts episodes! Keith, Paige, and Teresa will be back after a short break! Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfing...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we finish our two-part discussion of low heat methods and wrap up our first season of Wolfing Down Food Science with an interview with food engineer Dr. Deepti Salvi.  While most methods of preservation use significant heat, Dr. Salvi’s work focuses on two methods of food preservation that involve little to no heat, high pressure processing and cold plasma.  Tune...

Send us Fan Mail There are many ways to preserve food, but WHY do they work?  Most frequently, heat is applied, but there are other ways.  Today we begin a two-part discussion of low-heat methods of food preservation, focusing on UV light.  KEY WORDS: Free radicals, UV light, lipid oxidation, antioxidants Image: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolf...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most frequent concerns consumers have are the chemicals in our food.  Today, we discuss the various types of chemicals and why they are present.  Some food ingredients have chemical BOGO (buy one get one free) properties, such as providing both flavor and preservation effects. KEY WORDS: Additives, GRAS, Prior-Sanctioned Substances, Foods vs Supplements, Direct vs Indir...

Send us Fan Mail Teresa’s tomato molded, but why?  How do molds and other spoilage microbes get to your food and spoil appearance, texture, flavor?  Turns out, they are EVERYWHERE.  In this episode, we describe the sources for spoilage microbes and how to deal with them. KEY WORDS: pathogens, cross-contamination, Barfblog , Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Got a questions for us?  Email us at wolfin...

Send us Fan Mail Think about how much space frozen foods take up in a grocery store.  How did this all start?  On a journey to the arctic, USDA scientist Clarence Birdseye made the observation that fast freezing maintains the quality of food.  When he returned to the US, he invented the machinery that resulted in the frozen food industry as we know it today.  In this episode we discuss why frozen...

Send us Fan Mail In this “steamy” episode, we discuss the ways in which heat is applied in various ways to preserve food.  Want to know why organic milk has a longer shelf life than conventional milk?  Want to know why canning can actually improve the absorption of some nutrients?  Want to know why smoked foods have long shelf lives?  What kind of out of the box thinking can we do about microwave...

Send us Fan Mail Ever wonder why some foods are more sour than others or what people mean when they refer to acidity in coffee?  Acids preserve foods and add a lot to the flavor of food.  From tomatoes to coffee to whey protein beverages we discuss all about acids. Any off the tracks moments:  We get a little off track on Italian cuisine, the origins of tomatoes and noodles! Around 6 min. KEYWORDS...

Send us Fan Mail Part 2:  Whether it’s brewing beer or using fermentation to create pharmaceutical drugs, Dr. John Sheppard will tell us about the challenges of industrial scale fermentation and differences between beer brewing and drug production.  Oh yeah, and the NC State brewery. KEYWORDS:  brewing, engineer, biologist, saccharomyces cerevisiae, pharmaceutical 0:30 :  The ghost in the system m...

Send us Fan Mail Part 1:  Fermentation happens naturally.  Whether we get a delicious cheese or chunky, foul tasting milk depends on controlling the fermentation.  We will talk about how fermentation actually preserves food and has done so for most of human history.   6:24 Kieth explains his first fermentation experience 9:26 Pickling vs. fermenting 12:21 How to make homemade yogurt 23:32 Keith be...