why?
because that's what final year is all about :D
seriously, i'm not being hyperbolic or such thing like that... ask any student you know from final year batch in faculty of food science an technology, universiti putra malaysia, they will say the same thing like i did. this is because we have two big projects at the same time in one semester: final year project (FYP) and new food product development (PD).
FYP is, of course, a project that needs to be finished by university students in order to be graduated, which is usually done at their final year. my FYP itself is about white dragon fruit powder and bread. yes, i'm going to make bread with white dragon fruit powder mixed in it and investigate the quality of dough and the bread itself. why dragon fruit powder? well, it's because white dragon fruit is rich in soluble fibres and antioxidant, however, to preserve it, to make it more practical, and to make it able to be mixed with any types of food easily, it needs to be turned into powder first. bread is my food of choice because of its status as staple food and so far, in the markets, i only see one way to obtain fibres in your bread: adding whole grain, which mostly consists of insoluble fibres. do you know that soluble fibre can prevent high blood glucose level, while insoluble fibre can't? it's because soluble fibre can be dissolved in water inside your tummy and form gel that slows down the absorption of nutrient. it also lowers your cholesterol level by trapping the bile acids using that gel and removing them from your body. from the journals i have read, addition of soluble fibres, unlike insoluble fibres, does not change the appearance and texture of bread significantly, therefore it is suitable for those who don't like the coarse texture of fibre-enriched bread. sounds interesting, doesn't it? i have submitted my proposal, and now i'm still in the progress of making a good bread because, seriously, bread making is not as simple as you think. it is easy at the mixing stage, but when you reach the kneading stage, this is the time when your bread making skill is tested. i still fail at this stage because kneading bread dough is definitely not as easy as forming your play-doh eventhough the texture is almost the same. however, i found this challenging and i am thinking of taking one-day-course for breadmaking with one staff in my faculty whom i heard is very experienced in breadmaking stuff. hail to the breadmakers! :D
my latest trial. looks pretty good, isn't it?? hehehe *but ignore the crust please. it's as hard as a stone :D*
the other project, PD, is a project of inventing a new food product which has never been invented before in the world, and at the end of semester, our product is going to be competed with other products on launching day attended by judges from top food companies in malaysia. for new food product development, this is actually a group project that consists of 12 heads which can be used for the sake of creativity. however, we still can't say that this is an easy job because there are a lot of things that we need to think about when we're going to invent new food product. we have to think about the perfect formulation (which is the hardest part among all >,<), production thingy, packaging, marketing stuff, and now we know why a food company needs a big team when they're going to improve or make new product :D. unluckily, my groupmates picked me as their group leader, and i was very afraid at first because i had never been a group leader for such big project like this, and i think there are persons in my group who can do better than me in this leadership thingy. but, at the end, i think this is my chance to improve my leadership skill and to try my best, rite? so, doing all my best is the best that i can do :) and oh, our group is going to do cassava chips. no, this is not like cassava chips you see in the markets, of course. and what is the difference from the ones sold in the markets? i'm gonna let you know once we succeed :)
our latest cassava chips trial. ha, can you see the difference already? :D
besides having these two big projects, we still have to attend classes, have quizzes, and exams like previous semesters, so you can imagine how hectic this semester is for us :D. started from this year, final year batch is divided into minors which we can choose by ourselves. i chose functional food as my minor because i'm more into food chemistry thingy instead of food safety stuff (because i'm not a microbiology person. i can't do the same thing everyday like counting bacteria growth) or food engineering thingy (i HATE physics so much, remember?). besides, since i'm thinking of working in R&D division later, this minor is the most related to R&D stuff. hopefully i'm taking the right minor :)
soooo, last but not least, i hope you guys could wish me a BIG, HUGE, good luck :) thanks before peeps :)
see you when i see you later :)
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