Edible Knowledge

Have you ever wondered why when you bite or cut an apple, sometimes it will turn brown on the inside? This is a process called enzymatic browning and while it doesn't really affect the flavor, it doesn't look appealing. Let's dig into it a little bit. Enzymes are complex proteins that allow life to exists. If enzymes we ourselves produce decided to quite working, we would die very quickly. All living organisms, including apples, have enzymes that control our life processes. An enzyme naturally occuring in apples called polyphenoloxidase normally doesn't see the light of day: it is inside the cells of an apple. However, the apple is cut, lots of those cells are busted open, and polyphenoloxidase is on the surface. Now that it is in an oxygen rich environment, it will react with oxygen and other apple components to produce brown pigments. That's why apples turn brown.

If you don't want your cut apples to turn brown, food science can help you. Calcium ascorbate, a close relative of vitamin C, will block polyphenoloxidase from participating in browning reactions. You can mix a little calcium ascorbate in a bowl of water, rinse your freshly cut apples in it, and the apples will not brown for days, even weeks if handled properly and packaged well. And all you get is a little calcium and vitamin C. Packaged cut apples are treated this way, and it is a great thing you can do yourself at home. If you would like to improve your cooking and baking skills using food science, find out more below at this link where you can take a free 60 minute masterclass:
https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

"Hi, I'm Dale Cox, Professional Food Scientist and founder of the Edible Knowledge brand." When I introduce myself at trade shows this way, often people think I am a chef, but while I am not. Here's the difference: Chefs usually have a culinary arts degree, where they develop skill learning from others who have had many years of practice, and then practicing a LOT themselves, with a some science of how ingredients work included. The science of how ingredients work is called food science. Food scientists learn this in depth, but don't get a lot of practice in their training creating foods and practicing technique like chefs do, especially as it relates to seasonings that aren't "functional", other than for flavor. I have a two degrees in food science, and you can get a phD as well.

Food science helps improve your cooking and baking skills quickly, and especially improves your ability to create and troubleshoot, but you still need practice. An example: my wife enjoys cooking more than I do, and likes to try new things. She is a better cook than I am as she has more practice, but when she does want to do something new I can help her avoid pitfalls and be more successfull by helping her understand the food science behind ingredient and process interaction. At this point, after more than 30 years married to me, she knows quite a lot of food science. We call it Edible Knowledge.

Do you want to unlock the your own doors of creativity? Find out more below at this link where you can take a free 60 minute masterclass:
https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

Sucralose is a popular sweetener, but what is it, where does it come from, and is it safe? All great questions, let's take a look. Sucralose is made my selective chlorination of sucrose, more commonly known as sucrose, or your basic table sugar. Sucrose is made of a glucose and fructose molecule bound together. In the process of making sucralose, the glucose molecule transforms into a form of galactose, nother common sugar. The way our tongues perceive this transformed sweetener to be roughly 600 times as sweet as sucrose itself, which means you need to very little of it. Plus, sucralose is not digestible, the little needed to make a food sweet goest "staright through".

Is it safe? As for many food related questions these days, the answer depends on who you ask. Sucrolose is used around the world in products at varing levels, the United States being more conservative than others. It is commonly found in drinks as a sugar replacement. For example, I end up sitting in my booth at conventions for long days and will drink a protein shake to keep me going, many of which use sucralose as a sweetener. However, we are learning more and more about gut health, in particular the bacteria that inhabit our gut and the role they play on our health. Sucralose can affect our gut microbiome because bacteria in our gut eat what we eat, and they don't digest sucralose either. If we eat a lot of food with sucralose, it will affect the bacteria populating our intestines, which can affect our health.

So, what to do? My recommendation remains the same as it always has: eat as close to nature as you can, with common, natural ingredients, and use packaged foods moderately only when you need the convenience (like being stuck in a convention booth all day) or want a treat. That said, I will probably find a protein shake that is sweetened with sugar, as opposed to non-nutritive sweeteners like sucralose. What do you think?
Find out more below at this link where you can take a free 60 minute masterclass:
https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

Does the color of beef indicate how well it is cooked? Yes...and No. Another way to say this is "it depends". Beef color is primarly related to the iron oxidation state at the center of myoglobin, the molecule responsible for moving oxygen around inside a muscle cells (it gets the oxygen from a related molecule, hemoglobin, which is the molecule that makes blood red). This oxidation state depends, among other things, on the availability of oxygen. Contrary to some myths out there, for example, ground beef is not sprinkled with something to make it red on the surface. Rather, it is usually packaged with oxygen permeable stretch wrap, which means oxygen can get through. Oxygenated myoglobin changes from a dark purple to bright red and is then called oxymyoglobin. However, both myoglobin and oxymyoglobin under the right conditions will change to a gray/brown color, a molecule called metmyoglobin. This can be done by storage conditions where oxygen is depleted and time, or by cooking, among other ways. You may have seen grayish ground beef underneath the bright red outer layer. Now you know why, and you also know that the same color achieved by cooking beef can be acheived just by letting it sit under the conditions. Whole beef cuts, like a roast or steak, follow the same rules but only the outside is every exposed to oxygen, so color is a better indicater of whether it is done. The best bet is to use a thermometer.
If you are interested in these types of facts and want more or more detail, you are a Curious Cook and what you learn we call Edible Knowledge®.
Find out more below at this link where you can take a free 60 minute masterclass:

The Curious Cook Kitchen Mastery Program Masterclass Dale Cox is a professional food scientist with 23+ years of experience and advanced degrees in Food Science. He’s worked with major brands like Cheez-It®, Planters® nuts, Keebler®, and Gorton’s Seafood®, turning science into delicious real-world results.

Come and see us at our booth in Cincinnati at the Great Homeschool Convention! Thursday through Saturday we will be offering deals on our award winning print and self-paced online food science and physics homeschool courses. This includes our popular cooking and baking series called Edible Knowledge for the Curious Cook, now at 60 courses and counting! Remember, food science is much more than just culinary science.

What are all those ingredients I can't pronounce? Are food companies really trying to kill me? Hi, I'm Dale Cox, professional food scientist, and I can help you.

If you look at the ingredient line on many packaged foods, you might be surprised to find many that you don't even recognize, and much less have any idea what they are doing there. Even if you try to eat meals that you make at home, it is difficult in today's world to completely avoid anything that comes in a package, making consuming some of those unpronounceable ingredients almost inevitable.

BUT, with a solid foundation of what we call Edible Knowledge, you'll understand what those strange sounding ingredients are, where they come from, and what they are doing in your food. This knowledge empowers you to make more informed choices, reducing stress over these things in your life.

If you are ready to breathe a little easier....Start by taking my FREE 60 minute Masterclass and get introduced to The Curious Cook Kitchen Mastery Program.
https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

Have you ever wondered clear-ish egg whites turn white when you cook them? It all has to do with protein "denaturation" and the physics of light. Egg whites are about 88% water, 10% protein, and 2% other components, including fat, carbohydrates, and minerals. In short, egg whites are mostly water with a matrix of protein running through and encapsulating everything, somewhat compartmentalized ("thick" and "thin" portions of egg whites?). When raw, egg whites are clear but often with a straw color to them. Proteins are amazing molecules and are responsible for just about everything in life, from being structures themselves to making the structures. They are complex, with multiple levels of structure, forming a three dimensional object in its' NATURAL and FUNCTIONAL state. When exposed to heat, proteins shape changes from this natural state to something else and is no longer functional for what it was originally intended which in the eggs case was to make a chicken. This change process is called "denaturation": literally the natural protein transforming into something not natural. This change is almost always permanent, meaning you can't reverse it. That is, a fried egg whites, when left to cool, don't change back into clear, runny whites. Denatured egg white proteins interact with radiation in the visible spectrum differently, resulting in their appearance changing from an amberish clear to bright white. In physics terms, this is a change from light transmitting through the white to light scattering all wavelenghts of light almost equally, which is what our brains interpret as white. Why is this important to you? Egg whites are highly useful in foods, as are proteins in general. Protein denaturation is everywhere in foods we make everyday. If you understand the process, you can make it work for you to make your recipes even better. Would you like to learn more about how food science knowledge (Edible Knowledge) can improve your cooking and baking skills? We invite you to Register for our FREE masterclass: https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

Egg yolk color can vary widely ranging from a pale yellow to a reddish orange. The color changes are due to what the hen eats during development of the egg, with darker egg yolk having higher levels of carotenoids, the same class of color compounds resonsible for the color in carrots. In general hens that eat naturally, consuming greens, bugs and whatever else they can find tend to have darker yolks. The color will vary by season and what they are able to find to eat. Contrary to what you might think, apart from a modest nutritional benefit from carotenoids, which can help keep our eyes healthy, and sometimes higher omega-3 fatty acids, there isn't much other nutritional difference between eggs with dark orange yolks vs those with lighter yolks: both are great sources of nutrition. Egg yolk color does not have anything to do with egg age,w which can affect how the egg performs when used in many foods more on that in a later post). Would you like to learn more about how food science knowledge (we call it Edible Knowledge) can improve your cooking and baking skills? We invite you to register for our free masterclass: https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration

A new fear unlocked...and partially erased: pharmaceutical contaminated irrigation water resulting in contaminated fruits and vegetables. Here's the rub: Improperly discarded pharmaceuticals (pills) enter our water supply which is then evemtially used for drinking and for watering crops. While dilute, drinking contaminated water is not symptom free. A recent Johns Hopkins University study used controlled conditions to study pharmaceutical uptake in plants when irrigated using contiminated water. The good news is the pharmaceuticals mostly concentrated in leaves, not fruits or roots. Only carrots, tomatoes, and lettuce were studied. Leafy products, like lettuce, however, are another story. The bottom line: dispose of your unused pharmaceuticals properly, don't flush them down the drain.

To learn how food science (we call it Edible Knowledge) improves your cooking and baking skills, register for our FREE masterclass here:
https://edibleknowledge.easywebinar.live/Kitchen-Mastery-Program-Masterclass-Registration