Reddit mentions of Understanding Food Science and Technology (with InfoTrac)

If you have food science questions or need help, contact me! I'm a food scientist, but due to life-stuff, I'm not working in that field (though I've worked in food plants previously) and would LOVE to be able to talk shop. LOVE to.

If you can access it, I would highly recommend watching Alton Brown's "Good Eats" show. Alton covers a lot of the basics, and while he does get stuff wrong from time to time, I think he's still a good resource for getting a broad framework of how food works. Alton's show is what got me into wanting to go into food science. :)

My Intro to Food Science course used this book: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Food-Science-Technology-InfoTrac/dp/053454486X/ref=sr_1_40?ie=UTF8&qid=1537460151&sr=8-40&keywords=food+science You can buy it used pretty cheaply now. I'd recommend this one.

Chemistry both is and isn't super important when it comes to food science. I had a hell of a time with general chemistry classes, but I liked my carbon compounds class (basically organic chemistry dumbed down for us people not planning on being doctors). I personally think basic organic chemistry is better for food science; knowing how fats and sugars are composed and how they act was more important than knowing about the electronegativity of nitrogen or whatever.

More important than chemistry, at least in my studies, was microbiology. A lot of food science is food safety, and a lot of food safety is about how to control and reduce bacteria populations. That's not even going into fermented foods like cheese (my favorite topic, honestly) or alcohol.

Something to keep in mind, is no matter how much book learning you get a lot of food science is trial and error. And that's part of what's fun about it! Even though I'm not pursuing food stuff as a career right now (damn depression), I still feel like food science benefits my life. I love experimenting in the kitchen, and I actually became friends with one of my BFFs because she had celiac's disease and I liked figuring out how to modify recipes so she could also enjoy them.

What I'm saying is, even if you don't become a food scientist and Change the World (tm), learning more about it will likely be a benefit to your life and to the lives of the people around you. Plus, it's fun!

I'm going to have to see what food science stuff I still have on my computer when I get home; some of it might be beneficial to you.

Something I would recommend, if you're able: see if you can get work in a food manufacturing plant, especially if you can get into the quality department. This will give you more visibility as to what life would be like as a food scientist (probably working largely in food plants). I recommend QA because it has the most to do with food safety, generally, and seeing if you actually like repetitive lab work will help you figure out if being a scientist is what you want to do.

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What kinds of foodstuffs do you like playing with? That might be a good place to start figuring out what to read and what to research. For me, I love cheese (I worked in the university creamery and a huge mozzarella plant after college); cheese is honestly kind of magical to me. Seeing milk be transformed from a liquid to solid curds and yellow whey is just so cool, no matter how many times I see it-- and cheese tastes amazing anyway.

I also really like old-fashioned fudge (none of that marshmallow-fluff nonsense). The trick (and fun part) of fudge is controlling when and how big your sugar crystals are. It's half art, half science, and that's my favorite when it comes to experimenting in the kitchen.

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Like I said, PLEASE contact me if you want to talk about food science! I love talking shop! It drives my husband crazy! XD

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Food-Science-Technology-InfoTrac/dp/053454486X/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=understanding+food+science+and+technology&qid=1565077187&s=gateway&sr=8-2

This should be a great intro