Why do chocolate makers and other food producers use unsustainably grown palm oil? You can blame health-conscious consumers looking for alternatives to trans fats.
Humans are thought to be able to taste five qualities but technological advances combined with sophisticated research means we can now test for more subtle tastes we haven’t known about. In a paper we…
Food labels seem to provide all the information a thoughtful consumer needs, so counting calories should be simple. But things get tricky because food labels tell only half the story. A calorie is a measure…
Welcome to the second instalment in our series Chemistry of Coffee, where we unravel the delicious secrets of one of the most widely consumed drinks in the world. Here we look at how tweaking variables…
Do you inspect the appearance of a wine before swirling it around the glass (holding the stem, naturally)? Inhale deeply while describing the flamboyant nature of your Shiraz? Do you do that slurpy thing…
Strawberries and cream are symbolic of Wimbledon and appreciated worldwide for their oh-so-sweet flavour. Researchers at the University of Florida, including myself, studied more than 30 varieties of strawberries…
Nearly a third of all the food produced in the world is lost or wasted, according to the UN’s World Resources Institute. If we convert this mass into calories, it constitutes nearly a quarter of all food…
British supermarket Waitrose is marketing “bubbleberries” in some of its stores, describing them as resembling a small strawberry that is “beautifully fragrant, with the unmistakable taste of bubblegum…
Once again, genetically modified crops are in the news for all the wrong reasons. In Western Australia’s Supreme Court, organic farmer Steve Marsh is suing his neighbour and fellow farmer Michael Baxter…
Packaged green salad items, such as lettuce, coleslaw, or spinach sold ready to toss in the salad bowl, are now a frequent item in supermarket trolleys. With the ongoing popularity of such convenience…
The launch of the lab-bred “meat” in London was a masterly act of timing, theatre, and media management. But now that rabbit is out of the hat, there are questions that need to be asked, and answers that…
The biotech industry has long sought legitimacy by claiming that its genetically modified crop technologies are “feeding the world”. However this relentless focus on increasing food production ignores…
The cultivated onion, Allium cepa, is a savoury staple of cuisines around the world. Yet slicing up onions all too often leads to tears: you peel off the papery outer skin, start chopping and before long…
No matter where in the world you live, chances are you’ve eaten “pulses” some time in the last week. These foods, otherwise known as “food legumes” or “grain legumes,” have been a part of the human diet…
Many people find being high up an unpleasant experience. This is not just mountain sickness or acrophobia – it turns out our taste buds too have no head for heights. Taste is not just determined by the…
Pine nuts are those crunchy, delectable seeds we scatter over summer salads, use to make pesto and that form the base of some favourite desserts, such as pignoli and baklava. They usually have a sweet…