Washington, DC, USA. This Sunday, an estimated 58 percent of Americans will order pizza for Super Bowl parties around the country. Wisconsin supplies 35 percent of the country's cheese, used in Game Day classics like pizza, cheese dips and nachos.

To help celebrate the cheese fest that accompanies the Super Bowl, the world's largest scientific society, the American Chemical Society (ACS), released a video on the chemistry behind what American literati Clifton Fadiman once described as milk's leap toward immortality.


Super Bowl Sunday? Make that Cheese Bowl Sunday! On the day when people in the U.S. consume more food than any other except Thanksgiving, almost 60 percent (by some estimates), will have cheese on the menu. Pizza, nachos, cheese spreads and dips, cheese fries, Philly cheesesteak sandwiches — not to mention chunks and slices of Swiss, cheddar, Camembert and more. Wisconsin produces 35 percent of the country's cheese and where license plates proclaim America's Dairyland.

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Video courtesy of John Lucey and the American Chemical Society (ACS). Time: 00:04:27.

The Chemistry of Cheese. Featured in the video is John Lucey, Ph.D., director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lucey explains how cheese makers leverage chemistry to transform milk into cheese.Featured in the video John Lucey, Ph.D., director of the Center for Dairy Research at the land-grant university's resident "Big Cheese".

He explains in non-technical language how cheese makers leverage chemistry to transform milk into cheese. It involves special "starter cultures" of microbes that convert lactose, or "milk sugar;" into lactic acid; enzymes that "clot" milk proteins into a gel; separation of the solid curds from the watery whey and other steps.

Lucey explains how food scientists use analytical chemistry techniques to test the levels of fat, protein and flavor compounds in cheese to ensure a tasty, nutritious product. Like the New England Patriots and New York Giants teams on the TV screen, cheese also has to pass performance tests, in this case to ensure that cheese has the perfect amount of melt and stretch for those Super Bowl XLVI pizzas and other treats.

The video is the latest in the award-winning ACS Bytesize Science series. Viewed more than 2 million times in 2011, the Bytesize Science series uncovers the chemistry in everyday life.