As someone who’s been interested in food for a long time, I came into this class knowing some things we talked about. One aspect I had was a good understanding in was the agricultural aspect of foods. I’ve had the chance to learn about the green revolution and have had opportunities to see very vintage farm equipment because my grandparents have never had the guts to throw away “good” farm equipment. As a farming family, we actually grow ethanol corn, so being able to get a little more background on how much ethanol can be obtained from corn and how it effects overall corn production was extremely helpful. One thing I knew very little about agriculturally was residual crops. All I knew before this class was there very little that can be done with it, so we’d let some cattle roam fields and eat any leftover corn so there would be less volunteer corn. Now I know there are a ton of different nutrients that can be isolated and put to good use.
Something that I was very passionate to learn before this class was organic foods. My mom, another food science major, has always harped to me that organic is a scam. That there is no nutritional difference between organic and regular food, but people will pay a premium for the idea that what their getting is better. Personally, all I understood was organic was a way to avoid genetic modification and most additives. In a clean label point of view. So, I thought there was something majorly different that made organic special from traditional. Now I know organic ingredients really don’t mean much. Fruits may be a little higher quality except you need to be a super taster to notice it.
What I though was really interesting in the past month of this class was gut health. I really knew next to nothing about the microbiome other than one South Park episode making fun of fecal transplants. One topic we covered here was super foods. I actually thought super foods were just healthier foods. Now that I have a stronger understanding of probiotics, prebiotics, and the benefits of fermented foods, I can put a stronger meaning behind super foods.
I also enjoyed our discussions for unit 2. The combination of plant-based dies and research on why some synthetic dyes are detrimental was very interesting. I never knew the dye for plant-based meats was a carotenoid from plant roots. Even though I started to space out when we talked about insects, it’s amazing to see the efficiency and tastes of edible bugs. I’ve gone from only knowing about seasoned crickets to the realization of the variety of tastes they have and how easy they are for companies to grow. Like the picture of the one French facility we saw. It looked like a library of bugs from our perspective. Speaking of facilities, lab grown food. I loved learning about the science of lab grown meats, the labs that grow plants stacked on top of one another, and especially fermentation. We’re creating the technology to grow anything. I know it was a thing beforehand cause I did a project over the ethicacy of lab-grown human flesh, but what we learned in this class was actually enjoyable.
Packaging was another big thing I never considered. I only know the importance of oxygen and maximizing space, but never did I think about the aspects of food we can exploit via packaging. We can have far more cleaner labels. Not by changing a product, but by changing the process of how they’re made, and using packaging methods to improve products. I would never look further into a package further than the labels and visually pleasing aesthetics if it weren’t for this class.