Traditionally bread is made with Canadian wheat which forms a highly elastic dough – while this makes quality bread, it is also expensive for European societies who have to import such grains from abroad. Food scientists have developed ways to modify the dough produced from "soft" European wheat, to make it suitable for bread production. This usually uses vitamin C, which is a known oxidising agent, to react with the gluten in the dough, causing the sulphur-containing amino acids to cross link.
 

Margarine by law has to contain the same amount of fat as butter (about 80%). Both margarine and butter are emulsions; that is to say they contain droplets of water suspended in a background of fat (fat phase). Low fat spreads can be produced by swapping the phases and suspending fat droplets in water. Gelling agents have to be added to the water to make it set solid at room temperature. The amount of fat can be reduced still further, by creating a three phase emulsion, in which minuscule water droplets are dispersed in the tiny fat droplets which are suspended in the water-gel background.

Plant sterols and stanols added to margarines to lower cholesterol
The most recent development to low fat spreads is the addition of plant sterol and stanol esters which have been shown to lower blood cholesterol levels. They are just one of the burgeoning number of "functional foods" which are intended to have a specific effect on health. To learn more about plant sterols, click HERE
 

Skinless Chicken is low in fat and high in protein, providing all the essential amino acids you need to keep healthy. It has gained in popularity as anxieties over BSE in beef and Foot and Mouth Disease have increased people's worries over the safety of red meats. Chicken too has had its share of bad press, often being associated with Salmonella and Campylobacter food poisoning.

Mayonnaise is a food emulsion made from vegetable oil and egg yolks, which now comes in both traditional and low fat options. Emulsifiers and stabilisers are often used to keep the emulsion stable and the eggs used must have been pasteurised to ensure that salmonellae have been killed.