"When you look at a drama through a scientist's eyes, there is always a scientific principle behind the exclamation 'delicious.'"
At the 1st Gangneung NP·BIO International Conference held on the 23rd at Saint Johns Hotel Gangneung, Senior Researcher Cha Gwang-hyeon of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Gangneung Natural Products Research Institute unraveled the cooking we do every day in the language of chemistry, biology, and engineering.
Cha began the lecture with a scene of grilling meat from the recently concluded tvN drama "Bon Appétit, Your Majesty." It was to explain the "Maillard reaction (browning reaction)" in which the surface of meat turns brown. The drama topped the non-English TV category on the OTT service Netflix for two consecutive weeks, gaining great popularity.
Cha said, "Sugars and amino acids meet at 120 degrees Celsius or higher and create hundreds of compounds with flavor. The aroma of bread crust and the smell of coffee follow the same principle," adding, "This process also produces natural compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, but overheating can generate harmful substances such as acrylamide."
Cha also mentioned "sous vide," another cooking technique that drew attention in the drama. Sous vide means "under vacuum" in French and is a method of slowly cooking vacuum-packed meat at a constant temperature between 50 and 60 degrees.
Cha explained, "Collagen, a protein that supports various body tissues such as skin, bone, and cartilage, unravels at 58 degrees and makes meat tender, but once it exceeds 68 degrees, actin, a muscle protein, denatures and the meat becomes tough," adding, "Sous vide uses the interval in between, where proteins become their most tender."
The protagonist, who travels to the mid-Joseon era, even makes a pressure cooker that did not exist at the time and uses it for cooking. Regarding that scene, Cha added, "As pressure rises, the boiling point increases, so the water inside a pressure cooker boils at a much higher temperature than 100 degrees," and "This allows chicken proteins to cook efficiently, making the chicken in samgyetang chewier."
Cha also explained the science behind the pigments that produce the reds, greens, and purples of ingredients. He said, "The pigment that gives tomatoes their red color is carotenoid, and the purple of eggplant is anthocyanin; they function as antioxidants or can aid neurotransmission," adding, "Microbes in the body break down these pigments and sometimes create other useful substances."
In an interview that followed the lecture, Cha said, "Scientific phenomena occur in the body even after eating cooked food." He said, "When a person eats a carrot, the orange pigment beta-carotene first encounters gut microbes," adding, "Microbes convert natural products into other active substances, which can be absorbed and produce effects."
Cha is a systems microbiologist spanning microbiology, chemistry, bioengineering, bioinformatics, and public health. He joined when the Gangneung Natural Products Research Institute was established and has researched natural products for more than 20 years. He is currently conducting research on developing customized gut microbiome materials and delivery systems and discovering gut biomarkers for intractable diseases.
Cha said, "The reason the same red ginseng has different effects for each person is that the composition of gut microbes differs," adding, "Some microbes convert components of red ginseng into more potent forms. In the future, customized foods that reflect these differences will become possible."
He also suggested the potential for combining artificial intelligence (AI) with natural products research. Cha added, "Natural constituents are not singular; they are substances mixed from thousands of components," and "If AI learns these complex interactions, it could predict which combinations are most beneficial to the human body."