Home Economics: Term Learnings

Hi there!

Today I will be writing about what I have done this term in Home Economics. 

Here are some photos of what I made:

This term, we have been learning about colour, flavour and texture. These 3 things are very important when it comes to making meals.

Colour:

Colour is important because as humans, before even trying something we eat with our eyes. If a dish isn't colourful, we won't be very tempted to try it - no matter how good it looks. However, too much colour in a dish isn't good either. It can throw a person off wanting to eat it if the colours look sickly or are too saturated. 

To entice a person and really want them to eat a certain dish, the colour must be balanced out. You must include different colour groups. Here is a list of different fruits and vegetables, including what colour group they fit in.

• Red
• Strawberries
• Capsicum
• Apples
• Yellow/orange
• Oranges
• Lemons
• Carrots
• White/brown
• Mushrooms 
• Parsnip 
• Ginger
• Green
• Celery
• Chives
• Avocado
• Blue/purple
• Eggplant 
• Figs
• Beetroot

Flavour:

Flavour is extremely important in food. It provides excitement when we are eating, giving us a variety of different tastes. Flavours come naturally but are very commonly artificially produced too. Both natural and artificial flavours are needed in food, sometimes natural flavours aren't strong enough and therefore don't come across, making the food taste bland. 

Without flavour, we wouldn't be able to taste anything we eat, everything would taste the same - bland. Can you imagine eating chilli and not feeling the burning heat which comes along with it? It seems wrong, doesn't it?

Flavour/taste helps us decide what to eat and it influences our mind to digest it effectively and efficiently too. 

Texture:

Texture is defined as properties of food that are determined by touch in the mouth and touch by the hands. Texture is important to enjoyment and acceptability of foods. In a dish, the texture cannot just stay the same, otherwise it would get boring and difficult to eat. So, like colour, texture MUST be contrasting. Some good examples of texture contrast are: 

• Chips and dip
• Soup and toast/bread
• Nachos
• Waffles and fried chicken
• Popcorn chicken
• Crème brûlée

Texture is important to identify too, an experiment conducted where young adults were asked to identify what food they were tasting in puréed and strained form. The young adults were only able to identify 40.7% of the foods, this shows that flavour is not enough. 

Our mind thinks that foods which squeaks is bad, whereas foods which are crunchy are good as we are very sensitive to texture. 

Thanks for reading!