How small are actually the things food is made of?

How small are single plant cells, proteins, sugar molecules? What about those things that spoil our food: bacteria, enzymes? All of them are really small, but when things get this small it is often difficult to grasp that there are huge differences in smallness as well. Below is a tip on how you might get to grips with this.

When dealing with food we talk or read about proteins, carbohydrates, plant cells, enzymes, bacteria and lots of different "really small things". Enzymes react, making fruit brown, proteins and sugars react to give what we perceive as brown coloured and pleasant smelling bread crust. Plant cells absorb or lose water through osmosis to become hydrated or dried, resulting in crunchy or dry/flabby vegetables or fruit. Bacteria and fungi either help us making leavened bread or yogurt, or they spoil our food rendering it unappetizing or even unhealthy.

Usually we talk of these things as macroscopic entities: proteins = eggs, fungi = visible mould on old bread, carbohydrates = sugar in the sugar cup. However, some times these are referred to in terms of their microscopic properties, and this is among the challenges when teaching about food (many of these things are actually submicroscopic, but in educational context we commonly refer to this as the "micro level").

The concept of "smallness"

During my time of teaching, I've realised that many people in general have not reflected on several aspects of this feature:

1. there is indeed a microscopic world behind the macroscopic sensible/tangible world, and the latter is often a reflection of the former (after all, eggs are cooked because protein molecules react in certain ways)
2. there are huge differences in actual size between these things which we commonly just think of as "really small"

Culinary precisions, part 2:3. Analysing statements about food and cooking

Statements on what to do, how to do it, and occasionally why to do so, are abundant in the world of food and cooking. This is the second post of three, and deals with a rationale for analysing such statements. The third post will deal with the potential of using this for educational purposes, both in science and food disciplines.

In the first post, I wished for, and tried to give good reasons for building a database of statements on food and cooking (culinary precisions). For an introduction and definition of culinary precisions, see part 1.

The two other posts:

• Culinary precisions part 1:3. Collecting statements about food and cooking
• Culinary precisions part 3:3. Students as "culinary mythbusters"

Culinary precision = claim
A culinary presicion is a statement about something related to food or cooking, such as

• "sprinkle lemon juice on sliced apples/pears, and the fruit will not go brown"
• "you should avoid piercing meat as the juice will flow out resulting in a drier piece of meat"
• "you should cut off the ends of a roast before putting it in the oven"
• "when canning fruit in glass jars, the jar must be stored upside down"

Some precisions contain reason(s) for why one should follow them, others give a consequence that might occur if you don't follow the advice given. During a course on argumentation in science education, I realised that culinary precisions might indeed be considered to be claims. Occasionally, these claims have some data or warrants to explain why you should follow the advice given, and sometimes they don't (first case: "if you do A, B will happen", second case: "do this"). Hence, we are in the domain of arguments.

A system for analysing statements, claims and arguments
For analysis, understanding and testing such culinary precisions, it'd be good to have some coherent system or scheme to fit it into. Argumentation theory has struggled with the analysis of claims and arguments all the way back to Aristotle (and probably earlier). However, the "traditional" (syllogistic / syllogism) way of analysing an argument does only work for a certain type of arguments, and often fail to incorporate all aspects of real-life problems and discussions. Hence, other perspectives on logical arguments have appeared. Among these is the one presented by philosopher Stephen Toulmin. The Toulmin argumentation pattern is a way of organising, analysing and visualising practical real-life arguments, and is often shown in a diagram:

Toulmin's argumentation pattern (click for larger image)

Freeware for calculation of food ingredients, nutrients, energy etc.

If you can live with reading some Norwegian, this freeware program will calculate whatever you like in terms of nutrient content, energy etc.

Albeit not among the most recent news (at year and a half old), it might be appropriate to comment on Mat på data 5.0 v2 ("Food on computer") which was last year taken over by the public Food Safety Authorities (Mattilsynet) and rendered free. A great step forward for those who teach food&healt in the Norwegian (Scandinavian) countries, and of course others with interest in having a closer look at food and diet.

Study up to three foodstuffs/dishes simultaneously in detail
Just plug in the ingredients and amounts. It even allows for a large number of ready-made/processed dishes and semi-processed foods, and with an impressive detail in varieties of various foodstuffs (i.e. 15 different varieties of potatoes or potato dishes). Whenever you choose a food or dish, you can choose the amount by grams, number (i.e. no. of tomatoes), volume, or portions (i.e. two slices of pumpernickel bread, one glass of milk). The output is energy content and all the different nutrients, both in numbers and graphically (a couple of varieties). A copy-function for exporting to word processing software etc. in included. The screenshots below show information on the following small meal:

• One egg fried in butter
• Two slices of pumpernickel (black) bread
• Five cherry tomatoes
  

Create your own dish and/or meal
If you have a recipe of your own its no problem regiserking this in the database, and you can then compare your own chocolate cake recipe with the one you buy in the supermarket, or compare your modified version with grandma's. Also, it is possible to register a whole meal as one single entity (i.e. your regular breakfast of cereals, milk and cup of coffee).

Analyse/create a week's diet
If you have registered meals (see above), these might be put together to set up a week's complete diet.

Finally, it also includes some general recommendations for nutrient and energy intake based on a person's age, sex, activity level etc.

It may be downloaded for free from http://matportalen.no/Emner/matpadata. English translation (of the download page, not the software unfortunately).

Truly, a gift.

Erik