Nuffield Home Economics: food science

Food Science was one of the four topics that featured as a separate area of study in the Nuffield Home Economics course for students aged 14–16. The course was designed to help students understand the scientific principles underlying the practical work they would do in preparing and cooking food.

The course provided opportunities to learn about the activities of enzymes and micro-organisms, and ways of preserving food; about different methods of energy transfer and cooking - their effect and their cost; and about what food manufacturers do to foods to make them easy to prepare and cook. The students were expected to experiment with foods and equipment and learn to interpret the results of their investigations.

An important theme running through the course was the production of food which is good to eat: of optimum appearance, flavour, texture, and consistency. Scientific principles needed to understand and control the changes occurring during preparation and cooking, and to make informed choice of raw materials, equipment and methods, were introduced at their points of application.

The Students’ Book and Teachers’ Guide were supplemented by a pack of photocopiable worksheets and assessment card masters. The worksheets provide further information on the scientific principles described in the text, and contain activities which demonstrate them.

The assessment cards offer the teacher a variety of tests and projects for each chapter and help towards effective assessment of students' performance. They were designed to be flexible in use and were intended for display on an overhead projector or to be duplicated either in part or in their entirety for a written test. The questions are varied and include objective questions, structured questions, and questions using mathematics. Each card includes suggestions for projects or course work investigations. Many of the questions have no one right answer.

Contents
Chapter 1. How much food do we waste?
Chapter 2. Unwanted changes in fruits and vegetables
Chapter 3. Cooking fruits and vegetables
Chapter 4. Meat and fish
Chapter 5. Burgers, bangers, bacon ...
Chapter 6. Freezing and thawing
Chapter 7. Mixing ingredients together
Chapter 8. Mixing fat and flour
Chapter 9. Solutions and crystallization
Chapter 10. More mixtures of solids and liquids
Chapter 11. Mixing liquids
Chapter 12. Frothing and foaming
Chapter 13. Cooking methods
Chapter 14. More cooking methods
Chapter 15. Behind the labels