Wolfing Down Food Science

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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 in to learn the “secrets” behind processing and preserving orange juice, guacamole, lobster, and even raw oysters in ways that make them safe without “cooking”, while preserving nutrients.  How do the Northern lights relate to cold plasma?  How can cold plasma be used to make fertilizer?  What super-cool new preservation techniques are on the horizon.  Learn why our new favorite catch phrase is “the three elephants in the room”.

image: ) | © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

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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

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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 Indirect Additives, multi-Functional Ingredients, acrylamide, fortification vs enrichment 

**The image here is a preservative compound called sodium benzoate.

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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

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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 blueberries are not stuck to one another in a solid block, the importance of fast freezing for ice cream texture, and why just freezing foods cannot make them safe.

3:55 Paige starts talking about Clarence Birdseye.  

20:00 Thanksgiving mentioned by Paige 

24:40, Paige makes fun of Keith for talking about 50-pound turkeys. :-(

KEY WORDS: IQF (Individually Quick Frozen), blast freezers, ice crystal, glass transition, freeze concentration, sublimation

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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 ovens?  

No matter how it’s done, heating is not just about temperature, but about heating over time.  We discuss the pros and cons of lower versus higher heat methods.  

• KEY WORDS: pyrolysis, boiling, various types of pasteurization, canning, sterilization, aseptic processing, smoked foods, microwave processing, continuous processing, heat transfer, conduction, convection, radiation.
• 8:05 Grandfather clock inputs it’s two ticks on High Temperature, High Pressure processing in organic milk
• 17:37 Are you feeling like a 2450 or a 915?
• 19:20 Paige mentions continuous microwave processing, then Keith goes off on a “radar range” tangent.  For once, Teresa goes on a tangent at the end.

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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: 

• 8:05 Grandfather clock inputs it’s two ticks on High Temperature, High Pressure processing in organic milk
• 17:37 Are you at feeling like a 2450 or a 915?

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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 makes an appearance.
• 5:00 :  Dr. Shepard answers our standing question of when did fermentation originate?!
• 21:30 The WDFS team gathers around to debrief a great interview!

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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 becomes distressed over Kombucha

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Whether the water in food is interacting with compounds in the food or not has a lot to do with preservation of food.  Listen to why some foods grow microorganisms, like mold, quickly compared to other foods.  Should you eat the food after it molds?  How do the cookies in an Oreo or the pastry in a Pop Tart stay crispy when it is next to a creamy filling?

Any of the tracks moments: multi tasking humans??  17 min

KEYWORDS  water activity, mold, bread, equilibrium, water migration, texture

• 5:00 Why are foods just waiting?
• 13:08 Paige stumps Keith with buns that don't mold
• 21:40 Can we eat foods with mold on them?   https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/a87cdc2c-6ddd-49f0-bd1f-393086742e68/Molds_on_Food.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

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