Project Description
The food project was an interdisciplinary project in which students dove into the ethics of food and how food gets to our plates in humanities, and the chemistry and chemical makeup of food and cooking in chemistry.
In humanities, we watched films and read books including The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. After learning how food gets to our plates, we were asked to create our own ethics about food. We wrote a personal essay explaining this. |
In chemistry, we studied the chemical makeup of food by covering topics like balancing equations, types of reactions, energy transfer in calories, and other chemistry that we would need to understand what is really inside of the food that we eat. We then created a recipe for a specific food and chose one ingredient to manipulate and analyze how that ingredient effects the food. I chose to make sourdough bread and changed the type of starter I used.
Project Reflection
Having a project that is both science and humanities is amazing and makes any project better. I loved being able to read omnivore's dilemma and learn about corn in everything while getting to learn more about the chemical makeup of corn and the carbon inside of the corn. Being immersed in a subject for 3 hours a day lets you dive in and better understand what is going one. Since the project happens in two different classes and is about two different sub-subjects in one subject area, it is never overwhelming because you can decide what you need to work on. Although I like chemistry more than humanities, my favorite part of this project was reading the Omnivore's Dilemma. It was so much fun reading the book and learning about food and what happens to make it so we can have food from all over the world on our plate at any time of the year. The reason why the Omnivore's Dilemma went so hand and hand with this project for me as I drew inspiration from the Omnivore's Dilemma that I then used for my chemistry project.
My biggest take away from this project is the way I look at and think about food. I already knew a lot about food including the bad things that happen to create it, and the huge amount of carbon it takes to get us avocados in the winter or coffee from across the ocean. This project made me think about it more and care about it, every time I have a candy bar or on the rare occasion I have a soda I think about all of the corn that is inside of what I am eating and how that food was made and got to me. I also got to spend a lot of time researching the “fat-free fad” and how that has fattened up Americans. My parents have always said that fat wasn’t bad for you and that fat free foods have a lot of sugar in them but I never knew how much that contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States.
My biggest take away from this project is the way I look at and think about food. I already knew a lot about food including the bad things that happen to create it, and the huge amount of carbon it takes to get us avocados in the winter or coffee from across the ocean. This project made me think about it more and care about it, every time I have a candy bar or on the rare occasion I have a soda I think about all of the corn that is inside of what I am eating and how that food was made and got to me. I also got to spend a lot of time researching the “fat-free fad” and how that has fattened up Americans. My parents have always said that fat wasn’t bad for you and that fat free foods have a lot of sugar in them but I never knew how much that contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States.
My Food Ethic Essay
Chemistry Reflection
A. How does the ingredient you experimented with affect the food’s overall characteristics? Be specific and discuss the chemical structure of the ingredient and the chemical structures of the aspects of the food the chosen ingredient interacted with as part of your answer!
I changed the type of flour in my experiment which then produces different types and amounts of yeast and lactic acid which added to the flavor of the bread. When the flour is fermented the yeasts and lactic acid start to eat the sugars in the flour and produce CO2 and the sour flavor. Depending on the type of flour the yeasts eat different sugars and creates different flavors.
The flavor and density changed between loaf to loaf based on the flour that was used to make the starter. If the starter had more yeast and less lactic acid it would be fluffier but would have less sour flavor. The loaf of bread that I was looking for was a loaf the was fluffy along with good sourdough flavors and I found that with the ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ mixture of rye flour, whole wheat flour and bread flour.
D. 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?
I think cooking is a form of science even if you don't know what science you are doing, every time you boil a pot of water and cook past you are making science happen. Every-time a cook changes a receipt they are fixing a problem and then making hypothesis about what will happen and then experiment with it. Cooking goes hand in hand with science but in my project I approached my experiment with exact procedures and did the same thing every time even if the dough needed more water I would only add the amount that I did in the other bread. This is good science but not good cooking/ baking.
When making food you always have to be seeing how the food is performing and react accordingly. A chef bakes and creates constantly making sure everything feels right and is going well even if that means adding more flour to something that was added a different time. A scientist need to do the exact same thing to make sure the constants stay the same even if they know it wont turn out right.
I changed the type of flour in my experiment which then produces different types and amounts of yeast and lactic acid which added to the flavor of the bread. When the flour is fermented the yeasts and lactic acid start to eat the sugars in the flour and produce CO2 and the sour flavor. Depending on the type of flour the yeasts eat different sugars and creates different flavors.
The flavor and density changed between loaf to loaf based on the flour that was used to make the starter. If the starter had more yeast and less lactic acid it would be fluffier but would have less sour flavor. The loaf of bread that I was looking for was a loaf the was fluffy along with good sourdough flavors and I found that with the ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ mixture of rye flour, whole wheat flour and bread flour.
D. 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?
I think cooking is a form of science even if you don't know what science you are doing, every time you boil a pot of water and cook past you are making science happen. Every-time a cook changes a receipt they are fixing a problem and then making hypothesis about what will happen and then experiment with it. Cooking goes hand in hand with science but in my project I approached my experiment with exact procedures and did the same thing every time even if the dough needed more water I would only add the amount that I did in the other bread. This is good science but not good cooking/ baking.
When making food you always have to be seeing how the food is performing and react accordingly. A chef bakes and creates constantly making sure everything feels right and is going well even if that means adding more flour to something that was added a different time. A scientist need to do the exact same thing to make sure the constants stay the same even if they know it wont turn out right.