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Food science

University just got more interesting. This semester, one of my two classes is Food Science 1. I like food, and I like science, so goodness me, this is going to be good.

I had my first lecture for food science yesterday and found my entire course of 11 people sitting together in the second row of the lecture theatre, with all the kids from the nutrition and dietician courses scattered everywhere else. I was sitting there too but didn’t realise they were all in my course until the one person I did know introduced me to everyone. I just like to sit up front because I’m a nerd like that. I’m rather pleased that they are all nerds like that too.

I’m going to learn a lot about food this semester, supplementing my newfound knowledge, I will be attending workshops every other week in a lab/kitchen. In the first lab, we will be making fresh orange juice, and then testing it to find out some of it’s nutritional profile. Things will get interesting when we do the same tests on long life orange juice that you find on the non-refrigerated shelves of supermarkets, as well as bottled juice you find in the cold section. Now those results will be interesting!!

We get to do the same thing with yogurt (and yes, we get to make our own, which is good because I have made my own before, but it never turns out very well), bread, and sausages. I’m really looking forward to the bread workshop. Every single bread available for purchase seems to contain soy, but 93% of the world’s soy is genetically modified (and by genetically modified, I don’t mean a long history of selective breeding, I mean desired genes from a different organism, such as bacteria, are inserted into the DNA of a seed/crop). Since I don’t particularly want to be a guinea pig for the long term health complications of GM food (Feeding studies of GM crops are generally undertaken by the very company that modified the seeds, and only last a maximum of 90 days. There has been one independent lifetime feeding study in rats, lasting 2 years, with very scary results. Although controversial, no one else has attempted a lifetime feeding study, so although GM foods claim to be safe, are they really? Do we really know in the long term?), I would like to avoid eating such things. I’ve tried making my own bread, sans all the preservatives and soy, but it always comes out almost hard as a rock, and not very tasty. Needless to say, I’d love to learn how to make it properly, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the nutritional test results.

Tumours on rats who ate GM corn in a lifetime feeding study (image courtesy of The Daily Mail)

This semester is certainly going to be interesting. I’ll be sure to let you know the results of my orange juice, yogurt, and bread tests. Hopefully you’re interested, but if not, sorry in advance, I’m going to write about it anyway. It makes me feel better.

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