Bridging Rheology and Large-Deformation Mechanics: Emerging Frameworks for Modelling Edible Soft Matter

The structuring of food materials relies on transitions between fluid-like and solid-like states, as exploited in spray drying, baking, frying, extrusion, and 3D food printing. Describing these transitions remains challenging, as it requires reconciling perspectives from fluid and solid mechanics. Recent advances in soft matter physics have revealed a close connection between viscoelastic fluid models and large-deformation solid mechanics, providing a common thermodynamic framework based on the configuration (Cauchy–Green) tensor. Solid mechanics naturally captures the coupling between deformation and moisture transport, as exemplified by swelling hydrogels. We argue that similar couplings are also relevant in complex food flows, for example during extrusion of meat analogues, where stress-driven phase separation and moisture migration can lead to lubrication layers and syneresis. At the same time, rheological approaches based on (Thixotropic) Elasto-Visco-Plastic models remain essential for describing yielding and history-dependent behaviour in materials such as dough. Bridging rheology and large-deformation mechanics, and incorporating multiphysics couplings into constitutive models, opens new opportunities for predictive modelling of food structuring processes. Such integrative frameworks will be key to linking processing conditions to texture and functionality in foods undergoing fluid-to-solid transitions.