texture.
Proteins are the sensitive food
molecules, and are especially
characteristic of foods from animals:
milk and eggs, meat and fish. Their
shapes and behavior are drastically
changed by heat, acid, salt, and even air.
Cheeses, custards, cured and cooked
meats, and raised breads all owe their
textures to altered proteins.Water
Water is our most familiar chemical
companion. It’s the smallest and simplest of
the basic food molecules, just three atoms:
H 2 O, two hydrogens and an oxygen. And its
significance is hard to overstate. Leaving
aside the fact that it shapes the earth’s
continents and climate, all life, including our
own, exists in a water solution: a legacy of
life’s origin billions of years ago in the