Soft matter approaches to food structuring

We give an overview of the many opportunities that arise from approaching food structuring from the perspective of soft matter physics. This branch of physics employs concepts that build upon the seminal work of van der Waals, such as free volume, the mean field, and effective temperatures. All these concepts aid scientists in understanding and controlling the thermodynamics and (slow) dynamics of structured foods. We discuss the use of these concepts in four topics, which will also be addressed in a forthcoming Faraday Discussion on food structuring. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.