Thursday, October 7, 2010

Willy Wonka flavor time release chewing gum, courtesy of nanotechnology?

It didn’t work out that well for poor Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka’s factory.

But now researchers say they may have cracked the secret behind creating a sweet that replicates three meals in a single stick of chewing gum.

Scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) say the latest technology could be used to turn Willy Wonka’s eccentric invention into reality - but without the unpleasant side effects.

Food scientist Dave Hart believes that recent advances in nanotechnology, which deals with structures just millionths of a millimetre in size, could capture and release flavours in a precisely controlled way.

Hart and his team are experimenting with creating different flavour layers, based on a 17th Century ‘preserve’. The flavours are separated with a tasteless gelatine that stops them from overlapping, with a final dessert taste at the centre, encapsulated in a high-tech gel called Gellan.

In Roald Dahl’s book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka proudly displays a stick of Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum, which he claims can reproduce the flavours of every individual course of a full meal. ...

via Willy Wonka 3-course meal in stick of chewing gum now a possibility | Mail Online.

No comments: