If we didn’t have a way to keep things cold, we would never have created ice cream. The
earliest pioneers of ice cream had to do it in cold caves. We now do it with refrigeration. But
once ice cream leaves the refrigerator and gets put on your cone, how do you keep it from
melting before you can eat it all? There’s been a number of tricks done to help with this and
scientists from the University of Edinburgh have come up with another from an unusual
If you know anything about ice machines, you know that they can be breeding grounds for
bacteria. When enough bacteria get together they create something called a biofilm. Think of
it as a bacteria’s home. It’s a substance that keeps the colony whole. The scientists were able
to extract a particular protein from biofilm and add it to ice cream. The result, according to the
scientists, was ice cream that melts much slower than traditional ice cream while also making
The protein in question is called BsIA. What this protein does is make a bacterial colony water
repellent, but it also allows fatty substances and watery substances to be in close proximity to
each other due to the way it is formed. In food science parlance, it is also an emulsifier.
We all know that oil floats on water. An emulsifier brings two substances that would repel
each other together. Think of it as food glue. They’re the reason why your mayonnaise or
salad dressing doesn’t separate into oil and water. An ice cream without emulsifiers would
melt much faster because the fat and water in ice cream would repel each other. Emulsifiers
also keep the air that is beaten into ice cream from escaping quickly as well. This contributes
to the sensation of creaminess.
BsIA apparently works as an excellent emulsifier. When they added the protein to an ice
cream mix, the ice cream melted much more slowly because it drew together the components
so well. The discovery may also have other applications as well. Now that scientists know
how this protein works they could figure out how to disrupt biofilms that grow in other places
like your ice machine, or how to develop waterproof nanotech devices. In the ice cream world,
if they can make an ice cream that is stable at warmer temperatures this could lead to a large
reduction in energy use in this industry.
Did the researchers taste their creation? They weren’t brave enough to do that though, so it
may be a while before this has any practical food applications. For now, keep your
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