The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7483 p738-740
22/29 December 2007

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Why the “scientist on the high street” could be talented in the kitchen

Good pharmacists should be good cooks, says community pharmacist Bob Dunkley. In this article, he looks at the science of cooking

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SUMMARY

It is no coincidence that the inventors of Bird’s custard, Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce and Coca Cola were pharmacists. Every time you cook a meal, you are doing science.

The conditions, the equipment and ingredients must be just right, or the end result will not be what you expect.

When we make an ointment, a cream or suppositories, we use ingredients that conform to the British (or European) Pharmacopoeia, we use temperatures that the formula states, we use equipment that is up to snuff and we use techniques that produce an attractive and efficacious product.

During a pharmacy degree we learn pharmaceutics, pharmacognosy, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, pharmacology, physiology and mathematics, and many of these can be applied to cookery.

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