Food chemistry

Course overview

  • Course codeFBBT003
  • ECTS credits7.5
  • DepartmentLIFE SCIENCES
  • Graduate schoolBioscience
  • LanguageEnglish
  • Nordic Five Tech (N5T)The course is free of charge for PhD students from N5T Universities.
  • ApplicationContact the course coordinator

Course coordinator

About the course

The course includes lectures with the following content:
  1. Water and its interaction with food components and food stability
  2. Carbohydrates:
    Mono-, di-, oligo-, and polysaccharides
    Decomposition - reducing and non-reducing sugars
    Starch - granule structure and properties, native and modified
    Heteropolysaccharides - pectic substances and seed gums
    Sweeteners
  3. Lipids
    Fatty acids and triglycerides
    Phospholipids
    Lipid oxidation (rancidity)
    Rancidity - hydrolytic and oxidative
    Hydrogenation - mechanisms and catalysts, trans fatty acids
    Interesterification
    Polymorphism
    Synthetic fats
  4. Proteins:
    Amino acid chemistry
    Protein structure
    Protein changes during processing
    Vegetable, milk, cheese and meat/fish proteins
  5. Browning reactions:
    Maillard reaction - formation and control
    Enzymatic browning
  6. Emulsions
  7. Colours and colorants
  8. Food additives
  9. Flavours
  10. Toxic substances
  11. Biopolymer structures

Compulsory parts:
  1. Laboratory practicals will cover topics such as, Lipid oxidation, Enzymatic browning of vegetables and fruits, Protein processing.
  2. Seminar work where the students should critically go in depht within a food chemistry topic.The outcome should be presented in an oral presentation and a written documentation.

More information

Ingrid Undeland

Literature

Food: the Chemistry of Its Components, 6th ed. T.P. Coultate (2015), The Royal Society of Chemists (RSC), Cambridge, UK. (ebook via Chalmers library).
Handouts of lecture notes and scientific literature.

Lecturer

Ingrid Undeland