Book Review: Food Bites: The Science of the Foods We Eat by Richard W. Hartel and AnnaKate Hartel

Armed with curiosity and scientific expertise, the Hartels take readers on a journey of food exploration. In this readable volume, the father-daughter duo tackles 60 everyday dinner-table queries. Based on newspaper columns penned by Richard Hartel, a professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the book serves as a quick and humorous food science reference. It is geared both toward the merely curious (one section explores hollow chocolate bunnies) as well as the more practical (readers find out what to do when salt gets sticky and how to stop guacamole from turning brown). In other chapters, the authors describe how the eyes react to working in an onion ring factory, the role microbes play in making food and what happens during food irradiation.

The book goes beyond science to provide tales of the culture, history and engineering of food. In the mid-1850s, the advent of cereal reduced the time devoted to meal preparation. TV dinners, a century later, only strengthened the trend of moving food prep to the manufacturer. To preserve processed foods, science has been employed in every step of food preparation, right down to packaging choices.

The Hartels share gems from the history of the food industry, from the creation of the juice box to the launch of Lucky Charms.

With this road map to the world of food, the wonders of science in daily meals become easy to digest.

Springer, 2008, 190 p., $22.95