On Food and Cooking

Chapter 15 The Four Basic Food Molecules Water Water Clings Strongly to Itself Water Is Good at Dissolving O ...

Oligosaccharides Polysaccharides: Starch, Pectins, Gums Proteins Amino Acids and Peptides Protein Structure Proteins ...

the other food molecules. Fats, oils, and their chemical relatives are water’s antagonists. Like water, they ...

texture. Proteins are the sensitive food molecules, and are especially characteristic of foods from animals: milk ...

oceans. Our bodies are 60% water by weight; raw meat is about 75% water, and fruits and vegetables up to 95%. Wat ...

this attraction brings the two molecules closer to each other and holds them there, it’s called a hydrog ...

exerts a stronger pull on the electrons (small dots) it shares with the hydrogen atoms, the water molec ...

effectively surround the larger molecules and separate them from each other. If they do this more or ...

arrangement determined by their geometry. In solid water, however, the molecular packing is dictated by the re ...

substances that apart from distilled water, it’s seldom found in anything like pure form. Tap wa ...

sodium. Distilled water, which is produced by boiling ordinary water and collecting the condensed steam, ...

characteristic is that a body of water — our body, or a pot of water, or an ocean — can absorb a ...

evaporate moisture continuously. Cooks take advantage of it when they bake delicate preparations like ...

of steam increases the dough’s expansion, or oven spring, and produces a lighter loaf. Water and Acidity: The ...

hydrogen ions, which are the basic units of positive charge (protons), can have drastic effects ...

acidity would clearly be quite useful. A simple scale has been devised to provide just that. The pH Scale The sta ...

Lemon juice 2.1 Orange juice 3.0 Yogurt 4.5 Black coffee 5.0 Milk 6.9 Egg white 7.6–9.5 Baking soda in water 8.4 House ...

negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration expressed in moles per liter.” The logarithm o ...

Lipids Don’t Mix with Water Fats and oils are members of a large chemical family called the lipids, a term ...

performed mainly by phospholipids similar to lecithin (p. 802), molecules that cooks also use to form memb ...