food science

June 7, 2023

NEA1 Food Investigations

Hello – message from Jenny Ridgwell – For Food Teachers: my NEA1 Food Investigations 10 Tasks is available again 30th August 2024 as a PDF download – this includes the tasks from the posts below and more. Investigations were researched and written using The Nutrition Program some years ago.

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

November 23, 2018

Using the Nutrition Program for NEA 2

My resource for Food Preparation Assessment Task NEA 2 will be available as download mid September.

This shows how the Nutrition Program cab be used for different sections of the Tasks.

If you are a Nutrition Program subscriber, email us for a free copy.

key words NEA 2

Key words used in NEA 2

The chart shows key phrases from exam boards for NEA 2 where The Nutrition Program can be used.

  • The exam boards have similar points to cover
  • Research to find dishes that fit the task –
  • Explain how the dishes meet nutritional needs –
  • Look at Traffic Lights,
  • Reference Intake RI, and if they fit with a meal.
  • Look at sensory properties – use The Nutrition Program to draw up a Star Profile.
  • Carry out nutritional analysis of dishes – produce a food label using Nutrition Program
  • Portion control – see our worksheet for the Nutrition Program
  • Analyse the nutrition – annotate the food label.
  • Carry out sensory analysis and add tasters, then write evaluation – all done through Nutrition Program.
  • Use sensory descriptors – the Nutrition Program has a Tasting Word Bank
  • Cost the dish – the Nutrition Program has costs of ingredients
  • Conclude and think of improvements.

There are Step by Step links to each section of NEA2

October 26, 2018

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)

Star profile

See how to create a Star Profile on the Nutrition Program

Thermapen

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

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

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