Monday, March 23, 2009

What Happens When Mayonaise Freezes

A few weeks ago the thermostat in my fridge broke and everything froze solid. It was aggravating, but after it was fixed it was interesting to see how the freeze-thaw cycle had affected the various foodstuffs.

Vegetables- Ruined; turned to gelatinous pulp. I think freezing ruptured the walls of the plant cells.

Cheddar Cheese- Became crumbly, but tasted the same.

Bread- No effect, or at least none discernible to my palate.

Mayonnaise- Fundamentally transformed from a viscous, homogeneous, white substance into a runny, two-part solution with a majority fraction of urine-yellow liquid.

Photobucket

If anyone knows the scientific reason why mayonnaise does this, I'd be curious to hear it.
at

5 comments:

  1. Scott; KarinMarch 24, 2009 at 10:38 AM

    Mayonnaise is an emulsion, so I would assume that you are disrupting the emulsion when you freeze it, most likely by changing the physical properties of the lipids in the mixture; for instance the saturated fats probably solidify. If you are using reduced-fat mayo, however, all bets are off.

    ReplyDelete
  2. azraelJune 23, 2009 at 11:05 AM

    i'm pretty sure it's cool to freeze some vegetable. i freeze bell pepper halves all the time when i don't use the whole thing.

    thanks for the info about the mayo, i was tyring to figure out if mine was still good, hahaha.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tina FriesenOctober 17, 2012 at 11:07 AM

    Thats a stupid question. It just is, who cares??

    ReplyDelete
  4. James DouglassOctober 18, 2012 at 8:24 AM

    Tina- Who cares? Who cares? SCIENTISTS care, that's who. :) Also, you obviously cared enough to leave a comment. So maybe you're more of a scientist than you realize.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownNovember 16, 2016 at 3:45 AM

    FOOD TECHNOLOGISTS CARE. Its very simple to say that no one cares its not their field. :)

    ReplyDelete