NEA1 Food Investigations

Hello – message from Jenny Ridgwell – For Food Teachers: my NEA1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks is available again in September 2023 as a PDF download for £10 – this includes the tasks from the posts below and more. If you’re interested in getting a copy of this as a PDF, please email me directly at jennyridgwell75@gmail.com

Sauces,

Useful stuff on gelatinisation

Chemical Raising Agents,

Ideas and facts on raising baked goods

Bread,

Ideas on gluten and flours to use

Pasta,

Gluten and pasta

Sponge Cakes,

Sugar in cakes and more

Eggs and egg white foams

Evaluate foams for meringues

NEA 1 Food Investigations – 10 Tasks

For Food Teachers: my NEA1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks is available again in September 2023 as download for £10 – see a few example pages below. If you’re interested in getting a copy of this as a PDF, please email me directly at jennyridgwell75@gmail.com

YouTube videos for Nutrition Program

These videos cover a range of topics on how to use the Nutrition Program – from the basics to some of the more advanced features.

How to put a recipe into the Nutrition Program

A start on how to use the Nutrition Program to create a recipe.

How to make a recipe healthier with Nutrition Program

Now you have put a recipe into the Program try and make it healthier.

Nutrition Program and Sensory Analysis

How to carry out evaluation of a dish you have tasted.

How to find the portion size

Video shows how to work out if the portion size is OK

Using the Star Profile for Food Investigation NEA 1

Shows how to draw a star profile when you have carried out tests.

Using a Star Profile for NEA 2 for a recipe – Chickpea Curry

Step by step on how to evaluate your recipe for GCSE

Costing a recipe using the Nutrition Program

Work out the cost of the ingredients and total recipe

Tasting word bank

The Nutrition Program has a Tasting word bank which you can use for sensory evaluation for NEA 1 and NEA 2 and make a Star Profile.

Find words for

  • Taste, flavour and smell

    Tasting word bank in Nutrition Program

  • Appearance
  • Nutrition

Click the words you want to use and add them to Descriptors for your Recipe.

This example shows how to make a Star Profile for a Fruit salad.

Choose the tasting words – the sensory descriptors – you want to use and give them a Rating mark.

So Fruit salad should be

  • colourful 5/5
  • crunchy 4/5
  • sweet 4/5
  • healthy 5/5
  • attractive 5/5

The Nutrition Program draws the Star for you. Download as JPG

Now add a Taster (Jenny in this example) to taste your fruit salad and get them to score their results.

Now you can Evaluate the results of the fruit salad and see if it needs improving.

Just fill in the spaces for Evaluation.

Download the JPG to present in your work.

You can annotate the Star with more comments.

The final Star Profile compares the results of fats in pastry to see how they taste. You can add several types of pastry to the star to compare results and annotate.

Star profile fruit salad


Star profile with Evaluation filled in


Star profile with completed tasting and Evaluation.


Star Profile with annotation


Star profile for fats in pastry with evaluation


Star profile of fats in pastry with annotation.

This video shows how to do it

Sensory analysis video

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

Equipment for NEA 1 investigations

My list of essential equipment for investigations – things I have used for my experiments for NEA 1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks. This book will be available online to purchase soon. (mid Sept 2023)

Digital scales – you need accurate measurements for testing recipes

Digital scales

Food probe  – use to test setting temperatures of egg mixtures, sauce thickening temperatures and cooking temperature.

Nutrition Program! use to find the nutritional value of flours, sugars, beans, … to help you make choices for foods to investigate.

Digital camera – use your phone

Use phone to capture images
measuringcylinder

measuring cylinder

cover
NEA 1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks.

This book will be available online to purchase soon. (mid Sept 2023)

See how to create a Star Profile on the Nutrition Program

TASTING WORD BANK

See how to use a Tasting Word Bank on this link

YOUTUBE ON HOW TO DO A STAR PROFILE

See how to do a Star Profile on this link