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Molecular Gastronomy, The Science of Cooking

Roland Piquepaille writes "The Art of Cooking is evolving fast in this 21st century. New food products are being designed with the help of molecular technology, genetic discoveries or space research before arriving in our kitchens. For example, here is a Pravda article which says that NASA is preparing sandwiches which will still be edible after seven years. Companies like Kraft are also using nanotechnology to create food products tailored to users' needs. This is a booming market and, according to Associated Press, dozens of universities in the U.S. are offering degrees in culinology, attracting creative students in their food and science programs."

5 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Re:loads of oils, creams, butter and mayo by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Informative

    suggestion.

    talk to a Nutritionist and not some chef that has a wacked idea on how things work.

    Once a week I have fat with meat, because the chef said that new fat kills old fat.
      that alone is the most bizzare thing I have ever heard.

    guess what, you either need to reduce your caloric intake or do some of the extreme diets to lose weight.

    Atkins works as it thows your body into ketosis, vegan works as you have almost zero fat intake,
    simply being active, eating healthy and lowering your calorie intake works the best in the long run.

    no matter what a life style change is required. What you do to lose weight you have to live with forever and ever.

    a chef knows nothing compared to a dietician and nutritionist.

    Please get real advice from someone that can explain it in real terms instead of made up mumbo-jumbo like new fat destroys old fat.

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  2. The Fat Duck by Hogwash+McFly · · Score: 3, Informative

    The head chef of the Fat Duck (a British restaurant voted the best in the world this year - jokes about British cuisine now null and void), Heston Blumenthal, is what you might call a 'molecular gastronomist'. By breaking cooking down to the basical levels and using the principles of chemistry to determine good combinations of food one can offer up delights such as bacon 'n' egg ice cream and snail porridge; two of the most famous dishes served at the Fat Duck.

    I read a fascinating article on Blumenthal in The Sunday Times a good few months ago, and also learned of another restaurant (the name and location of which escapes me, although I think it was in Spain) which offered up similar food. The menu for this particular restaurant was something like 17 courses and several hundred euros a head. The writer for the ST (who was lucky to beat a three-odd year waiting list) was amazed at the combinations of ingredients and even the consistencies of the dishes that were comepletely unexpected. One particular serving that stuck in my mind was a kind of 'orange froth' that practically disappeared immediately in your mouth but was full of flavour. The journalist detailed how strange it felt eating froth for dinner. The cover of the supplement I was reading featured pictures from a handful of the courses and the presentation was astonishing. There was a square chocolate lollipop (I forget what wacky ingredient was coupled with it) which was so thin in the middle it was all wispy and translucent and webbed. Delicious.

    Anyone for baconated grapefruit?

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  3. Re:Science gone amuck again by kfg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Abandon the idea that baby food is somehow necessary for adult health (let alone the baby food of another species). That solves the price of milk problem.

    Start growing your own "Heritage" food. See the book "Sailing the Farm" for how this can be done on even a small sailboat, a living space far smaller and disadvantaged than even a metropolitan studio apartment. There are tons of newer books on container gardening.

    If you've got even as little as 16 square feet of dirt, see the book "Square Foot Gardening."

    You might well be surprised at how much you can produce from how little, all without using any of the modern industrial farming techniques.

    It's a matter of scale. The modern industrial approach to farming may be needed to generate the largest profit (not food, profit) from huuuuuuge. . .tracts of land, but have nothing to do with producing enough tomatoes for yourself, by yourself.

    KFG

  4. Re:loads of oils, creams, butter and mayo by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Informative
    I stay away from oils because they can ruin your whole system...

    Such as acting as transport mechanism for Vitamins A, D and E, which are fat soluble. You have to have some fats and oils in your diet daily, unless you don't care about proper nutrition.

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  5. Re:loads of oils, creams, butter and mayo by eaolson · · Score: 3, Informative

    Have you ever heard of carcinogens?

    Of course I have, there's no need to be snippy.

    How about Acrylamide? What is Acrylamide? It is just a chemical that food manufacturors put in French Fries and Chips.

    Actually, that's incorrect. Acrylamide is not added to food by manufacturers. While the exact mechanism of its formation is not fully understood, it seems to form naturally when starchy foods are cooked at high temperatures. McDonald's does not have a 55-gallon drum of acrylamide that they add to the french fries.

    Furthermore, whether or not acrylamide is definetely a carcinogen has not been fully determined. It, however, has been massively over-hyped in the press. And more recent studies have suggested that a diet high in acrylamide-containing foods does not lead to cancer.

    Do you remember sacchrinne? It was used in diet soda, then they discovered it caused cancer.

    Actually, it looks like the studies done back in the 1970s which led to the scare about saccharin weren't well-done. They used ridiculously high doses of saccharin, and the high doses may have caused cancer rather than the substance itself. There has been no link between saccharin and caner in humans. Saccharin hasn't been required to be labeled in the US since 2000.

    There are thousands of more chemicals which will kill a person than a person can eat.

    Of course. There are probably hundreds of carcinogenic substances. There are thousands of toxic substances. But there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of chemicals. The number of toxins and carcinogens that exist has no relevance to the relative risk from them.

    And of course many of them will kill you if you eat them. They're not food! Salt will probably kill you if you eat an entire bucket of it. So will ethanol or aspirin. Toxins are not carcinogens.

    I don't want to trust a chemist to tell me eating something that he made in test tubes is good for me

    Believe it or not, there is no vast conspiracy of scientists to poision our food supply. We have been performing chemical modification of food since the discovery of fire and the beginning of cooking. The whole point of cooking food is to make the proteins and starches more digestible and so our bodies can absorb its nutrients better.

    I rather eat what my great grandfather ate, and he lived to be 104 and very sharp, no mental slowdown like people get today. Speaking of mental slowdowns, do you know where it comes from? Aluminum in the diet. Where does the Aluminum come from? From all the machines that process food.

    Again, this is not true. I'm not sure what you mean by "mental slowdown" but I'm not aware of any link suggested between aluminum and senile dementia. There was some worry early on about Alzheimer's and aluminum, but it did not hold up under further study.

    Sour Cream. Sour Cream used to be made with bacteria and acidophilus. This is very healthy for people. Do you know how Sour Cream is made today? They take guar gum or starch and thicken milk. It is not even Sour Cream, but they keep calling the thick product that name

    Ingredients: Grade A Cultured Cream. One ingredient. Maybe you should switch brands? I don't know about it being healthy for you, it's rather high in saturated fat.

    Look up Free Radicals. Most foods are filled with them, and they cause people to age and get old and get sick and get cancer.

    Food is not "full" of free radicals. Radicals are so amazingly reactive they aren't stable enough to last very long in food. In fact, preservatives like BHT are added to packaged foods in order to prevent the formation of radicals, which cause the product to break down quickly and have a shorter shelf life.