Nano Could Bring Wonka Gum to Life

LONDONAccording to researchers from the Institute of Food Research (IFR), Norwich, England, the technology now exists to possibly bring the fanciful Willy Wonka three-course meal gum to life.

In Roald Dahls childrens book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the corresponding movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the concept of a gum that progressively moves through three courses of a meal is presentedfrom tomato soup to roast beef and a baked potato and finally blueberry pie and ice cream. Now, thanks to nanotechnology and flavor science, the IFR researchers have posited that the gum could potentially come to fruition.

According to an item from Londons Telegraph, researchers have developed technology that permits the capture of different flavors inside microscopic capsules, designed to release different flavors in the gum after given periods of chewing. The microcapsules were originally developed to deliver drugs to specific parts of the digestive system.

Dave Hart, a professor and a food scientist at IFR, has already developed a boiled sweet that uses different layers to provide changes in flavor. There are a number of groups here at the Institute who have been working with these capsules to provide a new way of delivering drugs to the colon, which means they have to be able to survive passing through the rest of the digestive system, he said in the Telegraph article. Researchers in America have been looking at using these capsules as a way of delivering flavor in food. So using it in this way would allow us to provide new experiences for people when eating.

Wonkas fantasy concoction has been nothing but a dream for millions of kids across the world, Hart continued. But science and technology is changing the future of food, and these nanoparticles may hold the answer to creating a three-course gourmet gum.

Hart notes that nanostructures within the gum would contain different flavors. These would be broken up and released upon contact with saliva or after a certain amount of chewing, he said, providing a sequential taste explosion as you chew harder.