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Oxygen, electrons and Scottish chefs: How understanding redox reactions could save you from a bollocking
Many years ago I was working in a restaurant in Scotland and in an effort to save myself some time I prepped a stack of apples we were using as a garnish hours before we needed them. Thinking I’d done something clever I was radiating smugness until a coworker pointed out that the apples would… Continue reading
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Trophic shadows and the tyranny of the energy pyramid
Ernest Rutherford, the famous physicist, supposedly claimed that “Science is either physics or stamp collecting”. At the cost of no longer being welcome in the biology department Rutherford was making the point that everything is subject to the laws of physics and ultimately these laws can describe any natural phenomenon. In real life we usually… Continue reading
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Pork, another red meat
Fear is a great motivator and, being in the business of motivation, advertising has always been very quick to take advantage of human uncertainty to build demand. An example of this is the famous “The other white meat” campaign for pork that ran in the States in 1987 and was copied here in Australia during… Continue reading
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Bananas, uniformity and catastrophe
I’ve been reliably informed by influencers, billionaires, failed comedians, politicians, Twitter pundits and assorted spite-filled meat-puppets looking to build an audience that diversity is a bad thing. Now I’m not one to disagree with the new intelligentsia but as a scientist, a member of the old intelligentsia, I can’t help but feel, deep down inside,… Continue reading
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A requiem for bacon
On October 26, 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) broke my heart. I know this sounds dramatic and maybe even a little silly. International research agencies don’t go around breaking peoples’ hearts. How can I justify this outrageous statement? Well it was on this day that the IARC issued a press release… Continue reading
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Stewing like a medieval peasant: How to deal with the the tougher cuts
Of all the wonders of the modern world I think that a supermarket would be the thing that would inspire the most awe in a time-travelling medieval peasant. The availability of spices would be one thing. Our vast range of ultra-processed ready-to-eat meals would be another. But the ability to walk into a supermarket and… Continue reading
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What are ultra-processed foods and why are they coming to get me?
Anyone with even a cursory interest in food and nutrition must have noticed that ultra-processed foods are having a big moment in the media. Barely a day goes by why without some article like “Every Bite of Ultra-Processed Foods May Increase Risk of Early Death, Study Says” or “Ultra-processed foods are silently altering your metabolism,… Continue reading
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Everything you ever wanted to know about cream (the food not the band)
Today I want to get back to dairy. In particular I want to get back to milks sexy cousin: cream. Cream comes from milk and we already know that milk is an emulsion of fats dispersed in a watery continuous phase. We also know that the fats in milk are packaged into a globule called… Continue reading
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Everything you think you know about nutrition is probably wrong
Are you confused about what we should be eating? Bewildered by contradictory dietary advice? Overwhelmed by dietary fads and loud-mouthed influencers? Well you are not alone. Over the past five decades endless cycles of contradictory nutrition advice and dietary fads have left most people in a state of utter confusion about what constitutes a healthy… Continue reading
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Quick Bite: How salt enhances the flavour of our food
In my recent post on MSG and our taste perception I was going to include a bit about salt and how it works as a flavour enhancer but, as usual, I went on a bit so I couldn’t fit it in. So I wanted to do this short post while it was all fresh in… Continue reading
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The science behind umami: Understanding the way we perceive taste
Most of us have now heard of umami and we probably all know that umami is now recognised as the fifth of our primary tastes, formerly limited to sweet, sour, bitter and salty. You might also know that Western societies were a bit slow to the umami party. Despite being recognised in the East for… Continue reading
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Starch and Gelatinisation in Everyday Cooking
I’m no historian but I think it would be fair to say that for most of history most humans relied primarily on starchy grains and vegetables to keep themselves and their families fed. Grasses like wheat, rice, oats and barley are easy to grow and the seeds, or grains, of these grasses are rich in… Continue reading
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Pasteurisation, food safety and raw milk
I like milk but, lets face it, the rear end of a cow is a pretty grotty place. You’ve got the business end of the alimentary system, a tail swishing around spreading manure all round the place and the udder, the source of our milk, is right there in the middle. Cows aren’t great at… Continue reading
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Milk: Nature’s Beverage and Its Curious Chemistry
I think humans have an interesting relationship with milk. Most of us start our food journey with human breast milk yet many, long after we’ve out grown any biological need for milk, chose to consume the milk and milk products of other species. To support this we have set up a $800 million dollar a… Continue reading
The Science of Food 