Taste the Rainbow! And be a FLAVOUR CHEMIST!! (Post #6)

While typing in "bestest/coolest/awesome-est jobs in chemistry" I came across the FLAVOUR CHEMIST. And yes, it is as awesome as it sounds (or tastes..yum).

The job description of the flavour chemists is, and I quote, " ...[to] enhance natural flavours and create new ones using various scientific applications and creative thinking". They usually work in "flavour houses" within the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and pet industries, and sell their products to companies that are in the need to amp up the flavour or, shall I say, spice it up a little bit. But in all seriousness this is a legitimate career branch in chemistry and there are a few things you do need in order to acquire this job.

Firstly, you do require a Bachelor degree for entry level careers, although for some positions more higher up in the field, they may also require for graduate degrees. Even though those are the only mandatory conditions, previous lab experience is also recommended.

Although it may not seem like the most ground-breaking branch in science, it is definitely something we take for granted, as it's the reason behind why a lot of the food you buy at the grocery store looks, feels, tastes, and lasts the way it does. Take for example pudding–sold in the refrigerated section at the grocery store. To make pudding, you start with dairy milk, which provides liquid and protein. Then you add starch to make the formulation thicker. As starch expands, it traps liquids to help create the pudding texture goodness. But, after only a few days, the expanded starch molecules start coming back together and the starch leaks water, which, for a consumer product, is undesirable. Thus, that's where the food chemists come in. They use chemically modified starches to prevent this from happening (crazy stuff!). So...yeah. They're the ones coming up with those wacky chemicals on your food products you can't pronounce...whoops. Whether or not that's a good thing, it's still pretty cool on a chemistry stand-point how you can alter the chemical makeup of food to make it do certain things that you want it to. So, if you're into that kind of stuff, the flavour chemist or the flavourist, just may be the right career for you.

Link to Article:
https://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/memberapp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=1188&content_id=CTP_003389&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1