Structure–Property Relationships in Foods

Structure–property relationships, the connection between the structure and the way a product behaves, is central to materials science and product engineering and design. For example, understanding the relationship between structure and specific physical properties is crucial for ultimately designing advanced materials and nanomaterials. For traditional engineering materials, finding structure–property relationships is somewhat easier than for foods because specific properties are well defined (e.g., strength, electrical conductance, etc.), measured with precise instruments and usually intrinsic to the structure of the final product. Also, the microstructures involved are those of more or less homogeneous materials (simple as it may appear, they do not contain water!) and are required not to change appreciably with time.