Cooking as nano-scale chemistry
Many of the proteins, sugars and fats in food are naturally nano-sized. You could say cooking is nano-scale chemistry, as Vic Morris from the Institute of Food Research explains:
'By boiling starch to make custard you are melting small 3D crystalline structures, only tens of nanometres in thickness. How thick the mixture becomes on cooling depends on the re-crystallisation of starchy sugars.'
So does the food industry need nanotechnology? Some of world's biggest food producers think so and are investing in research.
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Custard's thickness depends on naturally nano-scale chemistry. Image: FreeFoto.com |
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