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Showing Food Foams Properties with Common Dairy Foods

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Carlos Bravo-Diaz and Elisa Gonzalez-Romero

Universidad de Vigo, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus de Ourense, As Lagoas, Ourense 32004, SPAIN

J. Chem. Educ., 1997, 74 (9), p 1133

DOI: 10.1021/ed074p1133

Publication Date (Web): September 1, 1997

Section:

History, Education, and Documentation

Abstract

Most writers on food either ignore scientific principles that underlie cooking or disparage the value of such information on the grounds that can not be easily reduced to the test tube. However, people who have not yet logged years preparing food might require some explanation about what is going on or just simple may be curious about what foods are and how cooking works.

In this work we show some easy to carry, inexpensive and safe experiments developed using familiar kitchen materials related with egg foams. Eggs's properties are not only limited to prepare excellent and delicious emulsions like mayonnaise but also makes excellent foams, increasing their volume significantly in two primary ways: the first one may be attributed to the albumen (a major component of egg white) because it is a thick viscous solution and it drains more slowly out of bubble walls than does a thin liquid and the second one is because egg white introduces a kind of reinforcement into the bubble walls. As the egg white is beaten and air bubbles are incorporated into it, the proteins in the bubble wall are subjected to an imbalance of forces due to the air-liquid interface which makes them to unfold and bond each other forming a delicate but definitely reinforcing network.