jenny ridgwell

April 29, 2019

Food Science 20 questions Quiz 1

Quiz 1 will help you revise for the Food Science part of Food Preparation and Nutrition GCSE

Use Food Science You Can Eat to help – available mid Sept 2023

1 mark for each question. ½ mark each if there are 2 answers for 1 question.

Total marks out of 20.

Answers on the link at the end of the quiz.

Caramel and Dextrin

  1. Which ingredient is used to make caramel: a) flour, b) eggs, c) sugar?
  2. What happens if you taste caramel when it has just been made?
  3. How can you test the temperature of sugar caramelisation?
  4. Why is caramel used in packets of gravy browning?
  5. Give three examples of how caramel is used in food products.
  6. Which ingredient changes to dextrin: a) sugar, b) milk, c) flour?
  7. Why does toast taste sweet?
  8. When amino acids are heated when food is roasted, what chemical reaction takes place?

Gelatinisation of starch

  1. Which of these is not a starch: a) cornflour, b) eggs, c) wheat flour?
  2. What happens when starch is heated with water?
  3. What happens to the starch in pasta when it cooks?
  4. What happens to potatoes when they cook and soften?

Enzymic browning

  1. Why is lemon juice used to coat fruit when making fruit salad?
  2. What method will not stop fruit and vegetables turning brown a) cooking for a short time, b) chilling, c) freezing?

Eggs

  1. When eggs begin to cook the protein is a) destroyed, b) denatured, c) deactivated?
  2. With more heat the egg protein a) condenses, b) sets, c) coagulates?
  3. When egg is cooked for too long, water seeps out. What is this process called?
  4. When egg is whisked and holds air, what is formed?
  5. What is the function of eggs when making mayonnaise?
  6. What happens if oil is added too quickly to mayonnaise?

Food Science Quiz 2019

Taken from Food Science You Can Eat

September 13, 2018

Sugar in cakes – NEA 1

For NEA 1 you need to evaluate and annotate your results. Here’s how to do it using the Nutrition Program.

The Task – To discover what happens if you reduce the sugar in a sponge cake recipe.

We made cakes with full amount of 60g sugar and then did a batch with 50g, 40g, 30g.

You can evaluate the Functional properties of sugar in cakes – the purpose for which the ingredient is being used and can be linked to –  its structure, nutritional value, taste, texture, appearance, shelf life.

Star profile from Nutrition Program to show evaluation of results of reducing sugar in cakes.

How to do this

  1. Create a recipe for your sponge cake in My Recipes.
  2. Bake and compare your cakes and then click Star Profile
  3. Name the recipe ‘Star profile sponge cakes’.
  4. Choose descriptors – how the cake should look and taste. The descriptors we chose were – golden, yellow sponge, open texture, moist, dry.
  5. The Control cake was marked golden (5), yellow sponge (4), open texture (4), moist (4), dry (1) – this was our perfect cake.
  6. Taste the cakes and mark them on the chart – tip in the +Add Taster put the name of the cake – for example, full sugar, 50g sugar.
  7. The Nutrition Program Star Profile fills in – now you need to Evaluate the results under Evaluation – see our chart.
  8. To get extra exam marks you can annotate the Star profile.

This shows an example of annotating a Star Profile to show what the results mean.

Task

Compare the nutrition of sweeteners for cakes and desserts – use for experiments changing the types of sweetener used in cakes and desserts.

We are told to reduce the amount of ‘free sugars’ in our food, especially cakes and desserts.

But how easy is this to do and how much sugar is found in ingredients used for sweetening?

Compare the sugar content of different ingredients

To do

Use the Nutrition Program for this investigation.

Click My Recipes, +New Recipe and call it Sugar Investigation.

You want to find ingredients that you can use to sweeten cakes and the amount of sugar they contain in 100g

Find Ingredient

Type sugar and see the list. Tip – put a comma after sugar, then more appear. Some are lower sugar products.

Also choose fruits and vegetables which can be used to sweeten such as prunes and figs.

My choice

Sugar

Sugar, half spoon

Hermesetas, granulated sweetener

Banana

These are the results from the Nutrition Program

Nutrition of sugar
Nutrition of half spoon
Nutrition of Hermesetas
Nutrition of banana
Sweetening ingredientSugar in 100g
Sugar105 g
Sugar, half spoon99 g
Hermesetas, granulated sweetener14 g
Banana21 g

For Investigations, you need to make the cakes and find out how the results look and taste.

Then you can decide which sweeteners are the best.

Star profile of sugar in cakes with annotation

December 2, 2017

Portion sizes for NEA 2

You must show how your choice of dishes has the right portion control. But how do you know?

An average man needs 2,500kcal a day for a healthy body weight.
An average woman needs 2,000kcal a day for a healthy body weight.

Our video link shows how to use The Nutrition Program for portion sizes

How to find a portion size

Exam board NEA 2 marking statements

Planning  – Accurate portion control was evident Eduqas

Accurate and excellent knowledge of nutrition is demonstrated AQA  – need to have portion sizes to do this

Presenting – Demonstrates excellent portion control OCR 

You can check the portion size for meat, fish, chicken, fruits and vegetables on BUPA website

It’s a good idea to check out portion sizes of your favourite dishes using supermarket ready meals.

Sainsbury’s Ready Meals give clues and their site shows portions. I’ve removed the links as they keep changing.

  • Fish pie  weighs 450g serves 1 and provides 369kcal
  • Spinach and ricotta cannelloni weighs 400g serves 1 and provides 357kcal
  • Red Thai vegetable curry and rice weighs 350g serves 1 and provides 376kcal
  • Smoked haddock risotto weighs 380g, serves 1 and provides 402kcal

How many portions does crumble serve?

What about the puddings?

  • Apple and blackberry crumble portion weighs 60g, serves 1 and provides 217kcal
  • Lemon meringue pie portion weighs 100g serves 1 and provides 296kcal

So for your GCSE Food Preparation Assessment choose

Main course 350-400kcal portions – don’t forget you may serve with rice and vegetables

Desserts about 300kcal and portion 60-100g

Nadiya Hussain’s Pear and Blackberry crumble recipe which serves 4.

Each portion provides 856kcals – the average supermarket dessert provides 200-300kcal.

If portion serving were increased to 8 then the portion is reduced to 428kcal which is a healthier option.

September 26, 2017

Egg whites and foams for meringues NEA 1

Liquid egg white used for meringue tests to discover what ingredients can be added

I’ve been doing more egg experiments this time with egg whites.

Have been using Liquid Egg white to save wasting so many eggs as there have been lots of tests to do.

The advantage of using Liquid Egg is that I can measure the egg white to use to experiment. My egg whites from eggs measured different amounts in millilitres so I had to beat some together then measure the same amount for experiments.

Use my book Food Science You Can Eat for more help

Love Food Love Science have an excellent website showing egg white foam experiments and the science behind egg white foam formation.

Protein foam formation shows how additives affect the stability of egg white foams.

The age of an egg affects its foaming ability and you can see the IFST.org tests here.

Egg white and cream of tartar whisk really well but egg yolk is flat

What whisk to use? I found that electric whisks were best to get a fair test for experiments as you can time the whisking time and level of whisking.

You can find the tests for gluten and bread, gluten and pasta and egg whites in our resource Food Investigations NEA 1 available August 2024

Use an electric whisk for a fair test
Meringue recipe testing

I used The Nutrition Program to present the results of the tasting. This is how it is done.

Click My Recipes and name one as Mini meringue test

Put in the basic meringue recipe in Ingredients.

I’m testing to see what happens when I add oil, vinegar and cream of tartar to egg whites.

Go to Star Profile.

For each Taster put in oil, vinegar and cream of tartar.

Then think of Descriptors for sensory appraisal – your tasting work.

I’ve chosen crisp, sweet, chewy, light foamy

Then tasted the meringues and given each a mark out of 5 where 0= not and 5= very.

This is a new function added for NEA 1 test – Click Hide Rating.

I can now see the Star Profile with each meringue tasted.

Then I can write my Evaluations.

Then Download as JPG.

Full marks I hope!!

NEA 1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks
Make a star profile to show meringue tasting results
Evaluation of meringues in star profile
December 2, 2015

Star Profile / Star diagram for Pastry

Here’s how you can use the Nutrition Program for GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition NEA 1

Assessment 1: The Food Investigation Assessment 15% of total qualification

Task A Example: Shortcrust pastry should be crisp to the bite and crumbly in the mouth. It can be prepared using a range of different ingredients.
Investigate the working characteristics and the functional and chemical properties where appropriate, of the different ingredients needed to achieve a perfect shortcrust pastry.

Choose fats for pastries – for example, Trex, butter, lard and margarine, lard on its own.

Think of 5 words to describe pastry – crumbly, short, buttery, light, tough.

See our Tasting Word Bank.

Make and taste the pastries and put the results on My Recipes, Star Profile.

The Tasting words are listed as descriptors on the left side.

Then carry out several tastings and get marks out of 5.

The Nutrition Program creates the star as you can see below. You can then write the Evaluations of the different pastries as shown below and download your work.

Star profile for pastry

YouTube video using a star profile to evaluate

This is the star profile for sugar in sponge cakes.

Star profile of sugar in cakes with annotation