Food chemistry

I'm part way through my Bachelor of Food & Nutrition through La Trobe University here in Australia and I'm on the downhill stretch of applied food chemistry.

Nutrition/dietetics is more than telling people what to eat. There is an understanding that has to develop and it's a complex mix of biology, chemistry, psychology and sociology that all comes into play when considering future potential clients and how to approach things.

And right now it's all about the chemistry - the chemical makeup of foods (everything is a chemical, and organic structures are sometimes large and very complex, as are their interactions), and the chemical reactions that occur during cooking, storing, growing. We're also learning about farm to plate and how that impacts on what the end consumer receives (as someone born and bred in the bush, I already had a fair idea about most of this).

Yesterday was the final prac for this subject, and I need to write a 1200 word report on it.

I made moussaka. Which is all well and good until you realise that I had to weigh, measure and record every.single.thing - down to the weight of the baking tray. And then have 5+ people rate it on a hedonic scale and do a sensory taste analysis.

That's an entire afternoon of my life I'm never getting back lol

But, it got made, it turned out ok, and it got eaten.

I found it ok, but not quite as flavourful as I usually like, so I've already made mental alterations to the recipe in case we want to make it again (without all the extra weighing and measuring that is).

But, just another day in the life of a nutrition student during summer school holidays, trying to do an in-depth cooking practical and stay relatively sane while hopefully managing to record all the information needed to write the final report - which will be done when the kids are finally back at school next week!