The required "Works in Progress Symposium" was today and I was impressed, but also baffled. The first presentation I was impressed by because it dealt with food. The second presentation however, went way over my head. I was very impressed with the ideas coming out of the University of Memphis. I am not sure if these were grad students or just seniors but they had some patentable ideas. The first presentation was about the presentation of pureed food. The second was about evidence that a new electronic device for Parkinson’s disease is beneficial to patients.

As I have previously stated, the pureed food presentation was really interesting. The presenters each challenged themselves to make pureed food more presentable. They were also trying to make the protein content higher. Pureed food is like regular food but thrown in a blender and blended into a mush. It literally looks like throw up. It does taste like the food that it was before it was blended though. These researchers showed that the visual appeal greatly influences the way the eater tastes the food.

The students chose different ways to prepare their pureed food. The female chose to puree chicken stir-fry. She blended each of the ingredients separately and shaped them into their original shape. She then froze them. When she heated them up after freezing, they retained their shape and it looked like an actual stir-fry. The man chose to puree a sandwich. His did not turn out as well. He also pureed each of the ingredients separately and froze them into sheets. He thawed the frozen sheets and rolled them into what looked like a burrito. It was not as appetizing as the stir-fry but results showed it tasted like the real thing, not to mention it was not a blob of mush anymore.

The second presentation was tough to follow. The woman mainly used medical terms that were way over my head. From what I understood, she was improving on an already existing technology. Her improved version would not require as much invasive surgery as the existing product does. She used a lot of other fancy medical experimental terms, but it was all about the same subject, so I zoned out.