Food Microstructure Techniques

The future of food research and food production resides in controlling and manipulating food structures to give the desired functionality. This chapter provides an overview of some direct and indirect microstructure characterization tools that have been borrowed by food scientists from other science disciplines to help better understand food systems and correlate structure to food functionality. Modern microscopy and chemical imaging tools allow users not only to determine food morphology and ingredient distribution but also to quantify dimension parameters, concentrations, fractions, and kinetic constants. Covered in the chapter are various microscopy techniques that can be used to help determine the morphology of food (i.e., light microscopy, electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy). Also covered are various chemical imaging techniques (i.e., Fourier transform infrared, Raman, fluorescence, and confocal laser scanning microscopy) to help identify the distribution of ingredients with different chemical and physical characteristics. X-ray diffraction is covered as a physical structural tool to help understand molecular arrangement or crystallinity. X-ray computed tomography is covered as a way to quantitate in 3D with non-destructive imaging.