Chemicals in My Food

John Coupland is a Professor of Food Science at Penn State. His research program is on the physical properties of foods, in particular fats and oils. He teaches undergraduate Food Chemistry and graduate level Food Chemistry and Food Physical Chemistry. This is about that.

Process

 My research program is concerned with the physical properties of foods and tends to be rather instrumentation intensive.  Scientists in my field tend to get really nerdy about equipment and lists of what you have makes you look cool.  In my lab the basic measurement suite includes:

  • Static light scattering (Horiba LA-920)
  • Dynamic Light Scattering (Brookhaven ZetaPALS)
  • Microcalorimetry (Microcal)
  • Density measurements (Mettler-Toledo high precision)
  • Homogenizers (Panda valve homogenizer, Micropore membrane homogenizer, Microfluidics microfluidizer)
  • Lots of homebrew ultrasound equipment
  • Compositional analysis

In the shared materials characterization lab in the building we have scope for:

  • Optical and IR microscopy
  • Rheometers (controlled stress and strain)
  • Gradient field NMR
  • Lots more DSC

My department also has three well-equipped pilot plants for making food and a sensory lab in case you want to measure what it tastes like.