What has Physics to do with Food?

We don't really associate physics and engineering with making of food.  But delve into the food industry, and you soon find that physics is applied in lots of areas.  This unit looks at the confectionery industry.  We all like sweets, but why do we bother with physics.  The answer is consistency.  If we buy and enjoy a product, say a Crunchie bar, we want it to be the same the next time we buy it.  So production lines are set up carefully to ensure that the product comes out the same every time.  It would be impossible to make the type of sweet shown here by hand.

The physics in this section is:

• Viscosity;
• Archimedes' Principle;
• Flow;
• Hardness;
• Refractometry;
• Polarimetry.

There is much background material in the books that we won't cover here, as there is little point in reproducing it.