Food materials are unusual as soft matter. They are highly complex, operating on multiple length scales and phases and structured via multiple externally applied fields.
A growing number of scientists are applying a soft matter physics approach to food science. This Faraday Discussion on Soft Matter Approaches to Structured Food will introduce and strengthen the concept of the soft matter approach to food scientists, and bring food scientists together with non-food experts (both experimental and theoretical) from the field of soft matter physics. The Discussion will allow for the exchange of views on state-of-the-art approaches like soft-glass rheology, multiscale/mesoscale simulation techniques, theories on slow dynamics, and driven soft matter systems.
The Discussion was held in the city of Wageningen in the Netherlands - one of the prime centres for food science in Europe.
A growing number of scientists are applying a soft matter physics approach to food science. This Faraday Discussion on Soft Matter Approaches to Structured Food will introduce and strengthen the concept of the soft matter approach to food scientists, and bring food scientists together with non-food experts (both experimental and theoretical) from the field of soft matter physics. The Discussion will allow for the exchange of views on state-of-the-art approaches like soft-glass rheology, multiscale/mesoscale simulation techniques, theories on slow dynamics, and driven soft matter systems.
The Discussion was held in the city of Wageningen in the Netherlands - one of the prime centres for food science in Europe.
Aims
The aim of this Discussion was to provide a platform for the exchange of views, to encourage regular food scientists (such as process engineers and food chemists) to adopt the soft matter approach, and to encourage non-food experts from the soft matter community to include food materials in their research. Junior researchers and PhD students in food science had the opportunity to get more experience of novel soft matter approaches by discussion with top experts in the field. They also benefited from being able to showcase their own research via a poster session.Themes
- Structuring formation via external fields (shear, intensive heating, electric)
- Structuring formation via self-assembly (adsorption at interfaces/organogels)
- Slow dynamics in stabilized/jammed foods
- Simulation of structured soft matter/foods at multiple length scales
