The Food Systems Innovation Center Opens!

Angela Anandappa has been around all week again and this time she has a cameraman with her. They've been going around filming different professors and grad students speaking, and it's a little bit weird to see so many people in white lab coats because they usually aren't necessary; the only time I had to wear one is when I was in the protein chemistry lab.

The grand opening of the Food Systems Innovation Center was last night and it just didn't feel right seeing everybody in dresses and suits because I've never actually seen any of them in anything other than jeans. Anyway, it was a really nice event with several distinguished speakers (like the dean of the College of Agriculture) and we saw the video which was pretty good considering how little time was used to create it. It's also possible I'm a little biased because there's a short clip of me working down in the dairy lab.

I would like to mention that "The UK Food Systems Innovation Center provides technical services, marketing intelligence, business services and training components to aid in developing the food industry of Kentucky," according to the new website, and you should check it out at http://www.uky.edu/Ag/AnimalSciences/foodsci/FoodInnovationCenter.html

The Mixers

Each of the mixers have had a stainless steel jacket welded on. The mixers are used to heat up the milk and are actually very similar to pasteurization machines used in commercial dairies. The each have two spouts--one for water/steam to enter, and one to exit. The general idea is to have steam enter on the left-side where it then circles around and exits through the right. Dr. O'Leary explained to me that there are two basic kinds of fluid flow--laminar and turbulent (the more effective kind). These spouts on these two mixers are at different distances apart, and the mixer on the left actually heats up about 30% faster than the other because the angle the exit spout creates on the left mixer allows steam to exit more quickly so that hotter steam can enter. If you look closely you can see that the tubing on each of the spouts has been clamped to help keep it from falling off when the steam is at such a high pressure (earlier in the week we hadn't been using clamps and one of the tubes came off and sprayed us both with steam and hot water, which was not cool).

In addition to my e-mail finding duties, I've also started to work with Dr. Joe O'Leary, who's pretty awesome. We're working in the old dairy lab, and the most important machines we're using are actually modified electric mixers that you could find in any kitchen. Eventually we're going to be adding different bacteria cultures to milk (and cheese, but that'll be after I leave) along with known antimicrobials to determine if any growth inhibition is seen.

Before we actually start using the milk and bacteria I'm just using water in varying amounts to determine if there are any differences in heating times between the three mixers, and to figure out if there is an ideal volume of liquid that should be used.

Good Stuff

I ran into Angela Anandappa again yesterday, who's still working on the Food Systems Innovation Center, and this time she handed me a list with the names of over 1000 companies involved in food production in Kentucky. I'm supposed to be looking up the e-mail addresses for all of these companies because I guess the center has reached the point where it's ready to start recruiting people to check it out. Not so hard, except approximately half of these companies only have a partial address and many of them don't even have a listed phone number. I've also noticed that the companies that could probably benefit most from this center (like Poppy's Bakery and Anna Mary's Fried Pies) are usually the ones that have no website, no phone number and no e-mail address (that I can find). It's kind of disappointing because I'm very pro supporting small businesses, but it isn't easy.

Also, now's probably a good time to mention the Kentucky Proud Program (http://www.kyproud.com/). It's a pretty cool initiative from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture that's hopefully going to improve efforts to shop locally, which would lead to improved nutrition and according to the website it is "an investment in Kentucky's land, people and its future," which sounds pretty good to me. The website links to different Kentucky Proud restaurants, and there are lists of Kentucky Proud members and products. Obesity statistics in Kentucky are also posted, and apparently it's ranked 2nd in the United States for percentage of obese or overweight adults at 67.4%. Not good...

The People

I think one of my favorite things about this experience is the people and how entirely different everyone's background is. I'm definitely the youngest person here--everyone else is at least working on their master's degree, and some people have had a PhD for over 35 years! When I was first working with Jen I found out that her background was actually in nutrition and food technology, and she's actually representing Kentucky right now at the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) annual meeting and expo in Chicago, and in a few weeks she'll be attending a similar event in South Africa. When I was working with Jamie she told me that after she received her master's degree she got a job with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources where she did aquaculture (basically helping to conserve different fish populations by breeding them in a safe environment). When she realized she liked the work but not the environment she went back to school and ended up in protein chemistry, although she still does aquaculture because Dr. Youling Xiong (who's in charge of the protein chemistry lab) happens to have some experience in that area.

This coming week I'm going to start working with Dr. Joe O'Leary, originally from Ireland, who does most of his research with milk and other dairy products. Everybody that I've met here seems completely invested in what they're working on, and it feels amazing!

The Spectrophotometer!

The spectrophotometer. It looks pretty simple--and it could probably pass for a copier if you got rid of that mildly conspicuous box on top--but it's one of the greatest things about this lab.

Protein Chemistry

This week I've been working on making antibacterial protein casings that can eventually be used for sausage, cheese, etc. I didn't exactly mind making the different extracts and then adding them to the bacteria cultures, but I definitely like this job better. It's basically like cooking, which I love (there's a recipe and everything!). Most of the thinking goes into creating the recipe and determining how much glycerol should be used, figuring out how long the protein sheets should be heated, and deciding how much of the selected antimicrobial should be used, etc. After that things get pretty simple and although the process is slightly repetitive (we've used niacin as the antimicrobial for the past three days) it's better than waiting two hours for a spectrophotometer to do its job. I also feel like I'm moving on to the more practical stage of research because now we're only using compounds that are known to have antimicrobial properties, and now we're more focused on what concentrations of antimicrobial work best and on working out functional problems (for example, the niacin seemed to cause a hydrophobic reaction in the casing as it would curl up around the edges after it was placed on a piece of cheese). I also realized today that protein/wax coatings are commonly used on fruits and vegetables, which I never really though about before. Every day I work on this project I get a little more interested in keeping up with it. I'm becoming more aware of just how many different people and places could be affected and I love being a part of it.