Food Materials Science

Food manufacture is about producing billions of units of standardized products which must be cheap, nutritious, safe and appealing to the consumer’s taste. Food products are complex multicomponent and structured edible materials that nevertheless must comply with the laws of physics and fundamentals of engineering sciences. In the last 20 years the design of food products with specific functionalities has advanced significantly by the application of scientific knowledge from disciplines such as polymer physics, colloidal and mesoscopic physics, materials science and new imaging and probing techniques borrowed from chemistry, biology and medicine. Our knowledge of the relationship between microstructure, processing, and macroscopic properties continues to increase as the science of food materials advances at a fast pace.

This book is intended to those interested in viewing food technology as a way to preserve, transform and create structures in foods and the related materials science aspects of it. It attempts to present a unified vision of what today is considered to be food materials science and some derived applications. The book may be used as a text in a course in food materials science at the senior or graduate level or as a supplement text in an advanced food technology course. It will also serve as a reference book for professionals in the food industry.