1
Introduction
1.1 PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY IN FOOD SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY
Food science and technology are concerned with a wide variety of problems
and questions, and some will be exemplified below. For instance, food
scientists want to understand and predict changes occurring in a food during
processing, storage, and handling, since such changes affect food quality.
Examples are
The rates of chemical reactions in a food can depend on many
variables, notably on temperature and water content. However, the
relations between reaction rates and the magnitude of these
variables vary widely. Moreover, the composition of the mixture
of reaction products may change significantly with temperature.
How is this explained and how can this knowledge be exploited?
How is it possible that of two nonsterilized intermediate-moisture foods
of about the same type, of the same water activity, and at the same
temperature, one shows bacterial spoilage and the other does not?
Two plastic fats are stored at room temperature. The firmness of the
one increases, that of the other decreases during storage. How is this
possible?