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Neutron scattering explains why gluten-free pasta falls apart (2025)
- hunterpayne 5mo agoThis might be the most Italian thing I have ever read.
- fnordpiglet 5mo agoGod bless science
- analog31 5mo agoGod bless gluten. ;-)
- wk_end 5mo agoIndeed, blessed by His noodly appendage.
- logifail 5mo agoI and two of my three kids have coeliac(0), so we may have to disagree on that! Can confirm that various GF alternatives really don't come close to the originals. Without the gluten things seem to be too "biscuity"... 0) Third child positive for "predisposition to coeliac" on a genetic test, but no symptoms and an endoscopy was negative too. Let's see.
- luqtas 5mo agogotta try the combo VEGAN + CELIAC hehehe i literally gave up from Brazilian industrialized/processed food a long time ago :D
- whiterock 5mo agowhat are you saying - you are coeliac and gave up on eating gluten-free?
- luqtas 5mo agono, i gave up from buying processed food that's vegan and gluten-free... they usually are expensive and at the best, mediocre. i'm much better suited cooking at home and to not say everything veg and gluten-free sucks, the brand Schär has some neat stuff but the prices are quite steep here
- nacozarina 5mo agowhere’s the extra-gluten pasta? the rise of the gluten-phobes is unchecked and I feel the rest of us are getting hosed.
- svachalek 5mo agoThis is typical "help, the 99% is being oppressed because the 1% is not being oppressed" garbage. There's gluten everywhere. In a lot of American cuisine, every single item on the menu has wheat flour in it. Gluten isn't a phobia, it's an allergen that causes a variety of symptoms in people who are sensitive to it, from constipation and sneezing all the way up to bleeding and brain damage.
- bananamogul 5mo agoAll the way up to death, actually. Celiacs who consume gluten destroy their digestive system and die. You know how celiac disease was first discovered? Wheat shortage in the Netherlands during WWII. Suddenly kids that were trending towards death got much better. Then after WWII, they suddenly got sick again. Someone put two and two together.
- gib444 5mo ago> You know how celiac disease was first discovered? > Wheat shortage in the Netherlands during WWII. Suddenly kids that were trending towards death got much better. Then after WWII, they suddenly got sick again. Someone put two and two together. It was the link to wheat specifically that was discovered in the Netherlands, not the discovery of celiac disease itself. The disease has a much longer history [0] [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease#Etymology_and_early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease#Etymology_and_... [1] https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/celiac-history/ https://www.beyondceliac.org/celiac-disease/celiac-history/
- bluefirebrand 5mo agoI really hope that the person you replied to was being sarcastic.. It's getting better to be celiac but it's still very difficult. People who can eat gluten aren't being inconvenienced in any way by celiacs needing gluten free food at grocers
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- SV_BubbleTime 5mo ago> cooked in D20 Of all the options for heavy water, deuterium oxide, 2H2O, D2O… the latter is my least favorite because every time my inclination is to try and think of what element D is on the periodic table.
- throw567643u8 5mo ago> Greg Smith from ISIS as well as collaborators Didn't know ISIS gave a hoot about gluten free.
- dav_Oz 5mo agoIt is unfortunate that at some point in midst of numerous renaming itself after a brief stint in mass media around 2014 the programming on both side was so successful that the latin string of "isis" to this day is basically reduced in many westerners minds as a pavlovian reflex to this meaning, ironic because most arabs in egypt and elsewhere lack the association so kudos to the article/institute, leaving as it is great band btw > The name ISIS is not an acronym: it refers to the Ancient Egyptian goddess and the local name for the River Thames. The name was selected for the official opening of the facility in 1985, prior to this it was known as the SNS, or Spallation Neutron Source. The name was considered appropriate as Isis was a goddess who could restore life to the dead, and ISIS made use of equipment previously constructed for the Nimrod and Nina accelerators.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISIS_neutron_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISIS_neutron_source
- smartscience 5mo agoI work there, and when we give tours and people raise the issue, I like to point out that we had the name first and so we're not changing it. Though we did once get an official reminder that, to avoid ambiguity, we had to always say 'ISIS Neutron Source' in full on immigration and customs paperwork, especially in anything that also uses the word 'nuclear'.
- Traubenfuchs 5mo agoGluten free pasta is the same kind of oxymoron as lactose free cow milk. Might look the same at first glance but absolutely fails at replicating the most important property: taste. And here we have scientists proving it‘s worse in other aspects as well.
- tigermafia 5mo agoNot true. There is brilliant gluten free pasta out there which tastes very good and most importantly holds sauces well - which is one of the most important properties of pasta. I assume you just have never attempted to substitute properly before making bold claims. Or your cooking is lacking so I lean towards ignorance + skill issue.
- Klonoar 5mo agoRemoving lactose from things is largely solved at this point. If you’re experiencing an unfortunate taste you should try a different brand; the Lactaid brand (which is what everyone seems to know of) isn’t great.
- Avshalom 5mo agoRice and buckwheat noodles have a long and distinguished history.
- haritha-j 5mo agoI'm no expert, but aldi's cheap lactose free milk tastes the same as milk to me.
- NickC25 5mo agoMeh, I disagree. I get my GF pasta from a local italian food importer. the quality of the pasta is out of this world. i've done blind tasting tests with said importer and he couldn't tell the difference between GF and non GF. there are crappy brands out there for sure and definitely some GF products are bad. some aren't.
- bokkies 5mo agoThere are some corn/rice pastas that are pretty close to the real deal. Sure a seasoned pasta officianado could tell the difference, but we have gluten intolerant in the house so predominantly eat gluten free pastas. Never had a visitor or kids friends complaining (and kids will complain about anything). Happily chow down. There are also some pretty good grain free varieties made from tapioca and egg, we get lasagne sheets that are approved of by the only real Italian I known, they maintain the chewy/rubbery texture of lasagne well.
- agoose77 5mo agoYeah, the Rummo Gluten Free pasta is just on another level in the UK vs the own-brand stuff. Thank goodness!
- GordonS 5mo agoRummo is pretty good, but you have to cook it just right - a minute either side, and it's either grainy or falls apart as a soggy mess. Still, gluten-free pasta has come a long way.
- rjsw 5mo agoI think the Tesco own-brand pasta is good right now, also think that Barilla used to be better a few years ago.
- mapt 5mo agoYou don't need the wheat protein 'gluten' to make pasta at all. You do need some kind of protein. Carbohydrate hydration is a reversible process whose other endpoint is a solution, while (most) protein coagulation is a non-reversible polymerization process that creates an insoluble matrix. The less protein is available, the easier it is to "overcook" pasta into goop and then a starchy beverage. You see it in cooking the two common varieties of 'normal pasta' already - egg durum wheat pasta has more protein than pure durum wheat pasta, and is much harder to overcook.
- Avshalom 5mo agoI buy Jovial which is a just straight brown rice flour and as long as you cook it right (which in Albuquerque is a problem with wheat pasta too) it's great.
- MiracleRabbit 5mo agoReminds me a bit of the research dept of the company I'm working for. If they have too much free time they put much weirdo stuff into their devices just to see what.. happens. They have a spectacular collection of crystals scanned.
- throw310822 5mo agoThere's a reason it's called gluten. From Middle French gluten, borrowed from Latin glūten (“glue”).
- code_duck 5mo ago"Gluten free pasta" is not an adequate description. It's defining a food product by what it is not made out of. I assume they mean chickpea, or one of the kinds that's a blend with quinoa, because corn or brown rice pasta is actually much more resilient than gluten pasta. You can cook the rice pasta far overtime and it does not fall apart. Chickpea pasta disintegrates, though. Anyway, not to distract from the real topic.
- virtualritz 5mo ago"Materials Two types of spaghetti (regular No. 5 and gluten-free) produced by the Barilla company (Italy) were purchased in a supermarket." Are you kidding me? You did a study and tested /one/ kind of gluten-free pasta? There are so many different kinds from different companies. One type from Barilla is nowhere near representative to draw a useful conclusion. Especially as unlike many other gluten-free pasta products it lacks an important binding agent.[1] As someone with a gluten-allergic partner I regularly make pancakes and bake bread with (Italian!) rice-based flour. And they are difficult to distinguish from the flour based ones, in taste, texture, fluffiness and and structural integrity. The secret to this is xantham gum. It acts as a binding agent in gluten-free baking, providing the elasticity and stickiness that gluten typically offers. It helps to hold ingredients together and improve the texture. I learned this when eating excellent gluten-free pinza, in a small place in Catania, Sicily, whose owner has celiac disease. Ah yes, as far as pasta goes there is also research about this ofc[2] [1] https://www.barilla.com/en-us/products/pasta/gluten-free/gluten-free-spaghetti https://www.barilla.com/en-us/products/pasta/gluten-free/glu... [2] "Incorporation of xanthan gum to gluten-free pasta with cassava starch. Physical, textural and sensory attributes" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0023643820306630 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00236...
- cubefox 5mo agoThe headline is ambiguous and misleading. The reason that different types of pasta have different structural integrity is not that they scatter neutrons differently. Neutron scattering was merely the tool with which they investigated the different molecular structures, which ultimately explain the differences in stability.
- jakzurr 5mo agoOK, fun article. But holy smokes, when I first read the title, I thought it was saying, "GF pasta falls apart because of neutron scattering." Whew!
- slfnflctd 5mo agoSame thing happened to me. My reading comprehension isn't always great first thing in the morning, but I still feel like the title was/is somewhat confusingly worded.
- cubefox 5mo agoThe word "explains" is ambiguous. Compare: Jack's girlfriend explains why the sky is blue. Rayleigh scattering explains why the sky is blue. "Rayleigh scattering explains the blueness of the sky", Jack's girlfriend explains.
- gcanyon 5mo agoHA! I thought this headline meant that neutron scattering was the underlying cause of gluten-free pasta falling apart, rather than the tool used to understand the issue.