Functional properties of food

What do we mean by 'functional properties of food'?

Functional properties describes how ingredients behave during preparation and cooking, how they affect the finished food product in terms of how it looks, tastes, and feels.  Functional properties include:

• Dextrinisation
• Caramelisation
• Flavour
• Preserving
• Jelling
• Denaturation
• Coagulation
• Gluten formation
• Shortening
• Plasticity
• Aeration
• Flakiness
• Retention of moisture
• Sensory attributes

Check out other Love Food Love Science resources and the information below to learn more.

More information

OCR topic exploration: Cooking and food preparation

OCR: Heston Blumental's useful tips and activities

BNF: Functional properties of food

BNF factsheet: Food functions poster

BNF worksheet: Functions overview

Meat and Education.com: Food functions - beef casserole

BNF factsheet: Food functions - bulk