My long-term goal is to become a food scientist and develop varieties of lab grown food that can be commonly distributed all over the world. Although it is a study that lots of scientists still in the progress of, there are not many studies that have succeeded in order to make a complete lab grown source of food. Therefore, I would like to take my time in studying and working in food science in order to achieve this goal.

I went to a culinary school wanting to be a chef at some point. A major interest of mine has always been molecular gastronomy, which cooking and science come together in order to create something that people have never experienced or seen before. I loved cooking and baking for people as it is a way to bring joy and amusement to people by not only tasting but also watching cooking food. Although I loved every part of learning to cook and bake, it always made me wonder the science behind methods. In the kitchen environment, techniques are more valued than the science of how the food works and it never gave me the complete understanding of the logic behind cooking. Hoping to learn more about food and its scientific background, I decided to continue my culinary education and enrolled in the Culinary Science Bachelor’s Program. It altered the way I look at food from a cook’s perspective to a scientist’s perspective. The most exciting thing in this transition was that I was able to gain so much academic knowledge which was different to being in the kitchen. It wasn’t just something that I was learning by action, rather I was able to learn and understand everything based on something that can explain things with logic.

During one of my research class in culinary science, there was a project where we had to make pork sausages with no fat. The task was given to us to find a replacement that still made the sausage as moist and juicy as in regular sausages and also had the characteristics of fat. I decided to use glucomannan to make a hydrocolloid gel where it had a similar melting point to fat that kept the sausage moist and had a similar texture to normal sausages. Throughout the project, I realized that if cooks had more scientific knowledge on how molecules worked, there could be so many beneficial uses of ingredients. As I studied more and more about food, I started to wonder what I could do more beyond just making food for people and I realized that it can be possibly done by doing research in food science.

As having a high interest in molecular gastronomy, the class “ingredient functionality” was a class that allowed me to examine how modern cooks and food technologists use ingredients such as hydrocolloids in ways that earlier generations would never have imagined using those ingredients. Hydrocolloids were my favorite ingredient to use since thickening and gelling are fundamental technique in cooking and many modern functional ingredients allow the possibilities for creativity and innovation. I was able to discover how ingredients can be used to thicken or gel under conditions that traditional thickeners and gelling compounds cannot.

Taking few pre-requisites at Skyline College gave me stronger basic knowledge in science and math, and made me realize my strong interest in this field, and see myself very suitable for this field. Studying chemistry and biology from a non-food related perspective definitely gave me an opportunity to approach science in more variative ways and made me think of different ways that food science can be approached. Different perspectives will provide more opportunities in approaching different researches and I believe that I now have the knowledge to do so. Although I was not able to take all the prerequisite programs in culinary science, coursework in my program such as microbiology, ingredient functionality and culinary chemistry allowed me to gain so much experiences by conducting experiments and writing lab report as well as literature reviews. Writing and researching for lab reports and literature reviews allowed me to study a wide range of studies by searching and reading scientific journals and peer reviewed papers out there where I was able to learn what was not covered in the coursework.

For most of the past decade, the world has been consuming more food than it has been producing. There was a small increase in agricultural productivity and it is not enough to face the population growth. A burger has been made from real meat grown in a lab with bovine stem cells, and yeasts were used to make milk proteins, caseins and whey and they are identical to the milk proteins that come from cows. Reading about these studies made me thrilled and got me thinking of what I will be doing in the future as a food scientist.

I see myself very interested in field of developing lab grown food sources which can be developed for commercial production, contributing to the continuing increase in food cost as well as the food crisis. From the course “Culinary Research and Development,” I learned the requirements for food to be commercially produced, and it will help to develop better products. During this class, we created a product from start to finish including packaging, recipe, food sources even the setting of commercial production. Using the knowledge and techniques I gained from this course, I am convinced that I will be able to utilize these skills forward the research in functional food development.

Regarding to my goals, the MS program Nutrition offered by the George Mason University will guide me in what I want as a food scientist with the right knowledge and skills, providing me the experience to fulfil my dream. I believe that the MS program will allow me to study in the areas that I’m lacking on such as Micro nutrition and Macro nutrition, which I am very passionate to learn. I would like to gain as much knowledge as I possibly can by being in George Mason University’s Nutrition program in order to set the right footstep to go into research path and continue my studies. I expect that George Mason University is where I can find the answer to my questions and I would have a great chance to study food science and reach my goals.

I look forward to hearing from you soon and thank you for your consideration

Sincerely

Tiffany Kim