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Food Chemistry Basics
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Food is full of chemistry. In this course you will learn the basic (food) chemistry fundamentals you need to apply chemistry to food.
Why learn more about Food Chemistry?
A lot of fascinating phenomena in food are chemical in nature. In order to explain the colors of tomatoes, why a bread turns brown in the oven, and why acid ‘cooks’ fish in a ceviche, you need chemistry to explain what’s going on.
Once you have a basic understanding of the core chemistry principles in food, a whole new world will open up to help you trouble shoot problems in your process. You’ll understand how to control certain chemical reactions and you’ll be able to better understand the role of different ingredients in your process and product.
This is why we set up this Food Chemistry Basics course. This course provides you with the fundamentals of chemistry you need to find your way around in the world of food chemistry.
Why take this course?
Finding a good place to learn more about food chemistry can be challenging. It is mostly taught in universities or colleges and can take up a lot of your time and resources. So we designed this course to:
- be a very accessible version of an introduction to food chemistry
- follow it at your own pace, when you want it. Depending on your current knowledge level it will take anywhere from 2-10 hours
- immediately bring your new knowledge to life using quizzes & a project
- be part of a community where you can share your progress and request new features
- give you the tools to recognize and appreciate the chemistry in your food
It’s an excellent starting point to start recognizing and appreciating the chemistry in your food, without having to be a fully trained chemist.
This course is the right fit for you if…
- You’ve always been curious about how your food works;
- Your high school chemistry classes feel like a very long time ago (or you never had them in the first place);
- You have a broad interest in food, you’re not just interested in one specific phenomenon/product;
- You want to see how all that you’re learning in school is going to be useful in the real world.
If you have had extensive chemistry training already, this course is probably not the best for you. We will really focus on the basics, so you’ll likely know everything already. You might be more interested in our advanced and applied courses on ice cream and cake for instance.
What will you learn?
We start with atoms …
Atoms are the building blocks of everything around us, so are a good place to start. We’ll give you a refresher on what again atoms are and which ones are most important in food. This is what starts to set us apart from your basic chemistry classes, we won’t discuss atoms that aren’t that relevant in our food (and drinks), so no need to memorize the whole periodic system by heart!
… then build our molecules
By combining atoms together we can start building molecules. We will look at how that works and the language chemists use to describe these molecules.
Again, we look at those molecules most important in food and we’ll give some special attention to carbohydrates, fat and proteins. Don’t worry, we won’t dig into diets and nutritional advice (that’s not our expertise), instead, we’ll just tell you what they actually are!
… which react!
Chemistry really starts to become fun and interesting when all those molecules and building blocks start reacting. This is what transforms your food while cooking or producing it! We’ll have a sneak peak at chemical reactions.
Structure of the Course
This course consists of several text-based modules. You will not find videos, you will find images and photos to help support your learning. Have a look at our sample lesson to get a better impression!
In between sessions, there are several quizzes. These quizzes help you test whether you actually understood what you just read about, helping you to become an active participant in the course.
We also added a mini-project for you to complete! This project will give you the chance to apply your knowledge right as you learn it. It’s optional and won’t be graded, but a great way to actually start using the materials!
FAQs
For who is this course?
This course is for beginners with limited background (e.g. only a few classes in school) in chemistry and who want to learn how chemistry applies to food!
I am a chemist by training, will this training teach me something new?
In all honesty, probably not! This course focuses on the basics. However, if your chemistry expertise is focused on the field of inorganic chemistry there’s a chance the later sections focusing on food application may be of interest.
Can I find all this information on your FoodCrumbles.com blog?
Some of the course content is also published on our main website. However, it is spread over several individual articles. You will have to piece them together in the right order. The advantage of taking this course is that we bring it all together for a more holistic overview. Also, we added a bunch of new content, quizzes, and a fun project to really help you understand what you learn.
Do I have to pass the quizzes?
You will not receive an official certificate of this course. As such, you are free to take the quizzes or not. We believe those quizzes really help to understand the material and prevent you from skimming through.
Do you offer discounts to schools?
Yes, we do! Schools can use most of our content for free :-)! Just send us a note and we’ll tell how that works.
