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Soft condensed matter in food science

Although used in the past, the phrase ‘soft matter’only became widely accepted among physicists following the Nobel lecture by Pierre Gilles de Gennes, in 1991 [1]. This phrase now arises equally as often as ‘soft condensed matter’, specifying condensed and not gaseous complex fluids. Whether one form or the other is used, they both designate one of the most rapidly expanding fields in modern physics. Soft (condensed) matter deals with systems most often dominated by organic materials, in which the energy at play is typically of the order of a few K T , B and thus, where thermal fluctuations may play an important role. Soft condensed matter is a very interdisciplinary field in which physicists, engineers, chemists, biologists and mathematicians bring a multifaceted, broad and sometimes not yet homogenous view on complex fluids, which are ubiquitous in nature and range from synthetic systems to living matter. Foods are possibly the most immediate example of soft materials with everyday relevance, and it is now well accepted that soft condensed matter tools can serve as a valid basis in the understanding and study of their complicated and intricate features [2,3]. However, many phenomena remain to be unveiled in complex food systems, and the associated challenges constitute a fertile playground in which concepts from the condensed physics world are constantly tested and benchmarked. This special section of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter provides a collection of research papers from both the experimental and theoretical perspective, shedding light on original aspects of complex food systems from a soft condensed matter angle. Typical food components such as polysaccharides, proteins, fats and mixtures thereof are analyzed in detail in bulk and at interfaces, using state of the art experimental methods as well as polymer, colloidal, liquid crystals and interfacial physics theoretical concepts, to name only a few [4–15]. We wish to thank all the authors who have contributed to this issue, and all the referees who have been instrumental in increasing the quality of the published manuscripts. Finally our gratitude goes to the publishing staff for bringing the deserved visibility to those scientists who apply, daily, physics concepts to understand structure and properties of what is possibly one of the most significant classes of soft materials.