Cheese chemical changes

The plants and animals we have chosen to use as foods naturally contain, as we have already noted, thousands of chemicals that have no nutritional role, and when we eat to acquire the nutritionally essential chemicals we are automatically exposed to this huge, mostly organic, chemical reservoir. Of course, human beings have always manipulated foods to preserve them or to make them more palatable. Processes of food preservation, such as smoking, the numerous ways we have to cook and otherwise prepare food for consumption, and the age-old methods of fermentation used to make bread, alcoholic beverages, cheeses and other foods, cause many complex chemical changes to take place, and so result in the introduction of uncounted numbers of compounds that are not present in the raw agricultural products. 

Various physico-chemical changes occur in the structural components of the para-casein matrix during maturation these changes are mediated by the residual rennet, microorganisms and their enzymes, and changes in mineral equilibrium between the serum and para-casein matrix. The type and level of the physico-chemical changes depend on the cheese variety, cheese composition and ripening conditions. These may include ... 

Mora, R., Nanni, M., and Panari, G. (1984). Physical, microbiological and chemical changes in Parmigiano Reggiano cheese during the first 48 hours. Sci. Tec. Latt.-Casearia 35,20-32. 

Crude enzyme preparations have been used in food processing since prehistoric times classical examples are rennets in cheesemaking and papaya leaves to tenderize meat. Added (exogenous) enzymes are attractive in food processing because they can induce specific changes, in contrast to chemical or physical methods which may cause non-specific undesirable changes. For some applications, there is no viable alternative to enzymes, e.g. rennet-coagulated cheeses, whereas in some cases, enzymes are preferred... 

Abstract Overcoming the complexity of cheese matrix to reliably analyze cheese composition, flavor, and ripening changes has been a challenge. Several sample isolation or fractionation methods, chemical and enzymatic assays, and instrumental methods have been developed over the decades. While some of the methods are well... 

This phenomenon, called reverse osmosis, is used in a number of processes. An important commercial use is in the desalination of seawater or brackish water to produce fresh water. Unlike distillation and freezing processes used to remove solvents, reverse osmosis can operate at ambient temperature without phase change. This process is quite useful for processing of thermally and chemically unstable products. Applications include concentration of fruit juices and milk, recovery of protein and sugar from cheese whey, and concentration of enzymes. 

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