Preface

At first sight, the idea of engaging in a field where the basis of the physical structures involves many components, ranging in size from molecules to macroscale assemblies and leading to extreme complexity, might cause one to simply opt out – until one realizes that biologists do this every day. The key to the enormous success in such fields is the systematic reduction in the number of uncontrollable parameters. One might then draw a correspondence between the complex fields of biology and food science, but one could not be further from the truth. The science of biological systems, if one includes medicine, is barely 2000 years old. Modern biology goes back a few hundred years. The study, and understanding, of food and its preparation likely goes back tens and probably hundreds of centuries. But the scientific study of the fundamental components of food goes back less than a century. It is only 20 years since Athene Donald wrote her article about the physics of food [A. M. Donald, Rep. Prog. Phys., 1994, 57, 1081–1135] – long after the study of the physics of biological systems had become respectable – but, already, food science was moving into a new era. In the twentieth century, mass production of processed food came into its own with little regard for the long-term health of the consumers. It is only when human health became of central importance to society as a whole that the components of processed foods became of concern. What is in it and how it can be made healthier without sacrificing any of what is enjoyed became, and remains, a challenge. But this has opened a doorway to research and applications that have driven the adoption of new techniques and has brought food science to the outskirts of the modern research paradigm: collaborative work with scientists outside the field.

With this development has come another one: the journey from the large-scale to the small-scale. Not the “small-scale” of reducing all phenomena to non-interlocking components, but the appreciation of how the small-scale components interlock to give rise to the larger, more complex static and dynamic structures. The latter can go by many names: cooperative phenomena, spontaneous self-assembly and long-range order are only three aspects of the creation of the large-scale from the small-scale. But, and this is the key point, understanding the small-scale units enables one to manipulate the large-scale structures – it enables one to create new large-scale structures.

These are two aspects of modern food science research: collaborative work with other disparate disciplines and characterizing the small-scale structures to enable the manipulation and creation of larger-scale structures.

These are reasons why this book is timely. An understanding of the small-scale structures and their transition via aggregation, or some other process, into large-scale structures using new techniques is the wave of the present. These encompass not-so-new techniques such as atomic-scale microscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy, and newer approaches via synchrotron X-ray scattering and neutron scattering, to relate the nanoscale to the mesoscale. The recognition that food research is part of research into soft matter is a step in the right direction [Faraday Discussions, 2012, 158]. But it is edible soft condensed matter. The implications are not trivial: in the end the products must be edible. This puts a severe constraint on what substances can be, ultimately, used. Finally, amongst the new techniques is computer simulation. Although mathematical models, such as the “mean field” Avrami model, have been in use for many years, the use of computer simulation to understand equilibrium and non-equilibrium characteristics of systems is relatively new to food science. Thus, to study nanoscale structures one must likely go beyond “mean field” models and address, for example, the problems of recognizing the importance of “bound” water and oil molecular layers in molecular conformational and spatial reorganization. It is likely that such new directions will expand beyond university research laboratories into industry.

Accordingly, this book should find importance as a textbook for students of this developing field of edible soft condensed matter, both in graduate schools and at advanced undergraduate levels. It should also provide current researchers with jumping-off points to further their own work. It is likely to be the first unifying step towards the new field of edible soft condensed matter.

The editors are grateful for the efforts of Ms Judy A. Campbell, whose substantial and excellent work on copy editing has enable the book to be completed. They also express their thanks to the numerous funding agencies, especially the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, for the support of this important field.

David A. Pink,

Antigonish NS Canada