Food Ultrasound

For as long as espresso has existed, its defining ritual has been the same: hot water, forced under high pressure through finely ground coffee, in about thirty seconds. That heat and pressure are what most of us assume are non-negotiable, the whole reason espresso tastes the way it does. In June 2026, a research team at UNSW Sydney's School of Chemical Engineering, led by Dr Francisco Trujillo, published findings in the Journal of Food Engineering suggesting that assumption might not hold. They built what they call an "ultrasonic espresso," a brewing process that produces espresso-strength coffee using room-temperature water in two to three minutes, while cutting energy use by roughly 75%. Sound Instead of Steam The mechanism at the heart of the breakthrough is acoustic cavitation, the same physical phenomenon that shows up across a growing range of ultrasonic food and beverage applications. High-frequency sound waves are driven into a slurry of cold water and ground co...

                  Every year, kitchens throw away tonnes of onion peels without a second thought. They're the part of the onion nobody wants: papery, bitter, destined for the compost bin or the bin bag. A new peer-reviewed study published in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio) in August 2026 makes a strong case for why that should change, using a technique that will sound very familiar to anyone following the sonication movement in professional kitchens: ultrasound. Researchers from Sana'a University and Ibb University in Yemen set out to answer a deceptively simple question: what's the best way to pull antioxidant compounds out of onion peel? In other words, how can a waste product become a usable ingredient? They focused on a specific local cultivar called 'Ba Fatim', a red onion peel identified as an underused source of bioactive plant compounds. And they didn't just test one extraction method. They ran a direct head-to-head between two...

Every December the same small gamble plays out in the supermarket chiller. Two roasts, side by side. Same weight, same price, same shrink wrap. One of them will come out of the oven glossy and tender. The other will taste like a wallet. And there is no reliable way to tell which is which while you are standing there with a trolley. Or at least there wasn't. A pair of Danish researchers decided to settle the question the way they settle most questions at work: by scanning it. A Hospital Trick Applied to Dinner The study came out of Aalborg, from a collaboration between Dr Phillip Kaasgaard Sperling at Aalborg University Hospital and Gustav Normann, a medical student at Aalborg University. It was published in Ugeskrift for Læger, the Danish Medical Journal, in December 2024. The idea started as a conversation between two people who spend most of their working day reading ultrasound images. They had come across earlier research linking MRI scanning to high fluid content in a pork roa...

Food preparation has changed considerably with the development of modern culinary technologies. Chefs and food researchers increasingly seek methods to improve texture, flavour, appearance, and preparation time without relying entirely on high temperatures. One technology that has attracted attention is ultrasound-assisted food processing. Ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to create physical effects within food systems. Although the technology has been widely investigated for food processing, its potential in the culinary field is especially interesting. It can be used for tasks such as cutting, tenderising meat, improving flavour penetration, drying ingredients, mixing liquids, and controlling the texture of frozen foods. Rather than replacing traditional cooking methods, ultrasound can be used alongside them to give greater control over the way food behaves during preparation. What Is Ultrasound in Food Preparation? Ultrasound refers to sound waves with frequencies above t...