Is THIS guy going to be cooking your food?

First of all, thank goodness for the internet, without which I’m sure I would never read articles written for The Journal, distributed to the student population of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Second of all, The Journal had a little story the other day about Dr. Carmen Sanchez-Torres winning a grant. I’m sure she’s lovely but I’m far more interested in this grant:

She’ll be commercializing her new technology, using sound waves to improve the structure of baked goods.

What kind of baked goods apparently stand the best chance of being helped? You guessed it: gluten-free ones. (Well, OK, low-salt too — but that segment of the market isn’t nearly as sexy.)

Dr. Sanchez-Torres’ technology uses, “ultrasound to manipulate cell structure during baking,” according to the article. This, in turn, apparently impacts texture, taste, and mouthfeel.

The grant is for £500,000 (almost $790,000) and is expressly to help commercialize the technology (ie, to make food that we can buy). Macphie, a Scottish company that makes ingredients/mixes for commercial kitchens and manufacturers and that has a line of gluten-free mixes already, is on board to help out.

Sounds good to me.

Couldn’t resist the lame pun, but seriously: how cool is this?