Chemistry
Chemisty of Food & Cooking Project
Infographic: The Chemistry Behind Crispy Oven Backed Fries
Project Reflection:
How did your cooking process transform your food macroscopically and affect the food’s overall characteristics? Be specific and describe the transformations that happened on the molecular level that led to the observed macroscopic changes.
My food went from being a raw, not very digestible potato to an easily digestible cooked potato that had a fluffy inside texture. In order to reach this new texture the potato went through chemical changes that are not reversible. Potatoes are made of homogeneous plant cells that help kick start a new potato plant if the raw potato was planted. These potato cells contain starch, water, a nucleus and some other structures in order to keep the potato alive. Just like any other basic plant cell it contains cell walls. These walls serve as a shield to protect all of the inside structures in the cell. Those cell walls are held together by a pressure force between the water inside the cell and the cell wall or the more technical term turgor pressure.
When a potato is baked it dries out leaving a soft fluffy texture on the inside. This is because as the outside of the potato heats up the heat will also penetrate the inside. This causes the turgor pressure to be broken down. As the potato continues to cook, more of the potato's cell turgor breaks apart. This causes the cell structures to no longer be able to hold themselves together. The rupturing of the cell walls allows the inside molecules to spread out. Those released molecules can then react with each other to cause further changes in the potato as it continues to cook. Another major thing that happens is the high level of starch in the potato absorbs the water that was in the cells causing the starch molecules to gelatinize. This process is one of the main reasons a cooked potato has that fluffy inside texture because of the gelatinized starch molecules. The last major thing to happen while a potato is cooking is the Maillard reaction, where at high temperatures such as baking or frying, sugars and proteins in the potato react to make that crispy light brown outer layer. The Maillard reaction also causes an increase in flavor, hence why most people prefer crispy potatoes to soft ones.
In what way(s) are cooking and doing science similar and in what way(s) are they different? How are a cook and a food scientist similar or different?
For the most part I would argue that cooking and chemistry overlap a lot. When someone cooks something such as baking a cake, the action of baking that cake undergoes chemical reactions in order to reach the desired consistency. For instance, it's necessary to add baking soda to that cake if you want it to be fluffy. This seems easy enough, however, the chemistry comes in when you have to figure out the amount of baking soda to all of the ingredients. You can use stoichiometry in order to balance the ratios to the ingredients. However, when you normally bake a cake you don't use stoichiometry; you look up a recipe in a cookbook or on your phone and it tells you the ratios (amounts) to all of the ingredients. Food scientists use the chemistry to create the recipes and then most cooks use those recipes to make the food. It's kind of like a symbiotic relationship, if you’re a cook but never really understood chemistry content such as schoichometry then you need that food chemist to create your recipes. And if you’re a food chemist you want a chef to cook your recipes. They are different because of that relationship. One is in a lab doing food experiments/calculations and the other in a kitchen using those recipes.
Project Description:
This Project required us to pick something in the food science relm to study, and then create either an infographic or a recipe card. Some students explored what happens when you increase the amount of baking soda in a recipe while others explored how chaning the temperature toffee was cooked at could affect the final product. I chose to look at how different types of potatoes yeild a different fry crispiness or consistancy. I did this by making oven baked fries with different types of potatoes. Displayed below is my infographic that I created on my chosen topic.
SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Project
Project Reflection:
Pick one of the four Essential Questions and answer it. At the end of your answer, describe what beliefs (if any) you held at the beginning of the semester in relation to that Essential Question and how your understanding related to the Essential Question grew as a result of the work you did in this course:
For question one, “what is the biochemical nature of SARS-CoV-2” it has a tendency for the viruses spike proteins to bind to ACE2 receptors in our lungs and other arteries. This binding act is what lets the virus hi-jack our cells and start reproducing, essentially causing infection. During my project, I learned that A antibodies can act as temporary blocking mechanisms to protect the ACE2 receptors. A antibodies take the place of ACE2 binding to the spike proteins prohibiting them from attaching to the ACE2 receptors restricting infection of that cell. However, in order to have A antibodies, you must have a specific blood type, B or O. If your blood type is A or AB you don’t have those A antibodies making it easier for SARS-CoV-2 to infect your cells.
What I knew before this project was very little compared to what I know now. I knew that the spike proteins attach to our cell receptors, but I wasn’t sure which ones, or why there were new studies about blood types possibly having an effect on how easy it is to get sick. Throughout the duration of my project research, I learned a lot about the biochemical nature of SARS-CoV-2 in relation to blood types and the ACE2 receptors. Because of this, I can now explain a portion of SARS-CoV-2’s biochemical nature but not all of it fully.
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How did your knowledge of science grow through your work on the project:
In the beginning when I first started researching blood types and if they did have any impact on COVID-19 the data was kind of all over the place. Some sources were saying that it has no effect, while other more scientific research papers were saying that it most likely does. Throughout this process, I had to develop skills in choosing which sources were going to be the most accurate and up-to-date. I learned a lot during the few days of gathering information, picking out what I thought was the most important statistics. I also learned that scientists don’t just do a few small scale studies and call it good, there's a lot of experimenting and gathering that goes into reaching a solid conclusion. There's also a lot of false information out there that non-scientific citizens often jump to when the topic is rather astonishing, although most of this is just the media click-baiting you.
When researching you have to look at a wide range of sources to figure out what is going to be the most accurate, scientific papers are going to be more accurate than most news articles that don’t have a reputable scientist attached to the article. I learned a lot about how ACE2 receptors and A antibodies interact with COVID-19 with help from some reputable sources I found. It's interesting that on a cellular level having A antibodies could potentially add some layer of protection against the virus. Personally, I didn’t know that different blood types could impact viruses, however, after learning why, it makes a lot more
sense.
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Evaluate the pedagogical decision of focusing on SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) from more of a biology standpoint and not from a chemistry perspective. State whether you believe the benefits of this method outweigh the downsides or not:
This is a hard question for me. I understand the issues around doing labs since we’re fully online and can’t use Fort Lewis’s lab. However, on the other side, I’ve been pretty obsessed with science for as long as I can remember. I’ve always loved the experiments done through chemistry that physics and biology just don’t cover. After seeing all the cool things that the now senior class did last year I was looking forward to doing some of the same stuff they did. With the turn of events with COVID being completely online, it’s very hard to still accomplish this. I found it pretty cool when we learned about mRNA and that whole section of class related to protein synthesis, but that was still more biology than chemistry. I’m not sure if I would be prepared to take advanced chem as a senior having not been able to cover some of the basics as a junior. Having now reflected on the year I would feel that this method personally doesn’t outweigh the downsides. I love science, and part of that is being able to do captivating experiments. Which unfortunately we don’t have that ability at least not to a point where it would be beneficial.
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Project Description:
This project varied for each student. Some people wanted to do a structured academic controversy. While others wrote articles, made soap, or designed infographics. Our projects had to meet a few requirements: answer at least one or more of the four essential questions, demonstrating an understanding of your topic while growing your knowledge of science, and to create beautiful work.
I decided to design an infographic on the possible links between blood types and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) that ended up being published on SciJourner.org.