Mathematics and food: A tasty binomium

Abstract

The pleasure of eating, the art of cuisine, the science of nutrition, and the technology for food preparation, represent various facets of the most basic of human needs, that of finding every day the energy to supply to our body. Food processing has for a long time evolved from an artisanal activity to large industry, with a progressive involvement of multinational factories operating at a planetary level. Surprisingly as it may be, over the past few years, a tight bond has been consolidated between the food industry and mathematics, i.e., the science that has always been (erroneously!) considered as the farest from the primary human needs. © Springer-Verlag Italia, Milano 2009.