Thank you for highlighting my post on food scientists and nutritionists not being friends. That anyone can claim to be a “nutritionist” is part of the problem. When I refer to nutritionists, I refer to those with one or more degrees in an accredited program in human nutrition and/or dietetics. Because of the stigma many critics of the field place on the us, few people would try to pass themselves as food scientists. Food scientists do many things in addition to working for the food industry or teaching people to go into the food industry. In addition to work on mechanical properties as so nicely portrayed in your post on the spurtle and cooked oats, food scientists conduct research on food and its properties including studies on flow of liquid and semi-solid foods, food safety, food fermentation, pro- and prebiotics, as well as characterization of human perception of food flavor, color, and textual properties. Many food microbiologists and toxicologists work in governments and international organizations such as FAO and WHO to study
food outbreaks from processed and unprocessed foods and help prevent future ones. Other food scientists at these agencies work to improve the nutritional quality of foods in developing nations as well as those distributed in times of natural disasters and famines. In addition, the movement known as molecular gastronomy is a marriage between food science and culinary arts. I highly recommend Alan Kelly's book Molecules, Microbes, and Meals if you want to know more about what food scientists do outside the doors of a manufacturing plant or a food-science classroom. Another interesting book is Acquired Tastes by Massimo Marcone who went around the world to study exotic foods including trips to Italy to study truffles and Italian saffron.

I enjoy your site as it helps expand my horizons with respect to food.