The Materials Science of Food
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The Materials
Science of Food
Athene M. Donald, Guest Editor Food is such a familiar “material” to all of us that it is easy to overlook the science input required at all stages in its manufacture, from production to consumption. Nevertheless, as the articles in this special issue of MRS Bulletin seek to prove, the materials-science approach is every bit as valid—and as useful—for food as it is for any more conventional system studied in our field. The familiar linkage of structure– property–processing serves equally well in the case of a chocolate bar as a steel bar. Food is a challenge for the materials scientist for many reasons. It is almost invariably heterogeneous and multiphasic; its raw materials may be very variable, depending on frequently unknown parameters such as the average temperature conditions in which a cereal crop has grown or the maturity of a cocoa bean at the time it was harvested; and it has so far proved impossible to find a straightforward correlation between any standard mechanical test parameter and the qualities a consumer will describe (e.g., crisp or soggy, tough or soft). Nevertheless, in these complex, variable materials there is a richness of science that we are only just beginning to uncover which closely relates to the well-tested laws of crystalline and amorphous materials typically found in our laboratories. Long before the days of modern biology and our ability to carry out genetic modification, farmers—and more recently, the agrochemical companies—have been consciously selecting cereal crops for some desired trait. Initially, such selection would have been based on agricultural parameters such as hardiness, yield, or disease resistance, and these would frequently be driven by local environmental conditions. The ability to relate any parameter back to a plant’s genetic makeup has come only recently and is still far from a complete science. But as this link between genome and end-use functionality and properties is filled in, the possibility of tailoring a crop in a particular (and probably novel) way emerges, subject of course to consumer acceptance. This does not necessarily mean
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growing transgenic plants, with all the hyperbole and horror that have accompanied the subject. It may simply mean the ability to carry out hybrid crosses as breeders have done for centuries, now based on detailed knowledge rather than pure empiricism. The article by Richardson, Jeffcoat, and Shi addresses this issue and indicates the advantages that modern biological methods offer for producing useful raw materials for the food industry. This article concentrates on cereal crops, for which the process is most advanced. Many other raw foodstuffs have not yet been studied in such a detailed way at the genetic level. This is certainly the case for the cocoa plant, grown in tropical Africa and South America. Many local communities depend on this cash crop, but its properties vary quite a bit. Beans from the two different continents are different in their chemical makeup, specifically in the relati
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