When a home cook wants to cut fat and sugar from a meal he’ll
bake the potatoes rather than deep fry them, choose tomato sauce
over a creamy one and serve fresh fruit in place of Crème Brulee
for dessert. But when a food producer is designing a product
that he wants to adorn with a “reduced fat”, “fat free” or “low
carb” claim, he usually turns to the food chemist for a fix.
Food engineers replace the unwanted ingredient while recreating
the same texture, mouth-feel and taste of the original. Absolute
magic. The cover story titled “Call In The Food Fixers” in last
week’s edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the American
Chemical Society’s weekly magazine, gives us a glimpse into the
science of tricking the tongue (the article was available in
full text, but access is now restricted). “To make sure
consumers won’t miss what’s missing, food makers can choose from
a long list of texture-improving additives and replacements—from
agar to xanthan gum—and they normally choose several. The
functional ingredients m