It's enough to put you off your breakfast! Incredible close-up images of everyday foods that are often less than appetising


These bizarre objects are enough to put you off your corn flakes. But in fact your breakfast could well be one of these 17 foods examined up close under the microscope.

The often alien-like landscapes show some of our favourite - and least loved - foods from strawberries and chocolate to broccoli and cauliflower.

Scientists have captured the images in laboratories during research into what makes our daily food.



Would you eat this? A strawberry seen in extreme close up

Crystalline: The same process is used to picture a grain of salt in extreme close up, revealing its regular structure

Rugged terrain: Instant coffee granules look to all intents and purposes like a rock formation in some area of natural beauty The real thing: This curious pitted landscape is actually an extreme close-up view of a coffee bean

Hidden beauty: A broccoli floret seen at such huge magnifications looks like a tulip Twins: On the left is a scanning electron micrograph of a red grape, the right image is of a white grape

Cornerstone of the Mediterranean diet: But tomatoes don't look quite as appetising when viewed at a nearly cellular level Which would you prefer? Sugar seen in an extreme close-up takes a regular crystalline configuration, while aspartame, a popular sweetener seen as the healthier choice, looks disconcertingly like flakes of dandruff



Hot, hot, hot! The open fruit and seeds from a bird's eye chilli pepper Super food: Two scanning electron micrographs reveal the inner structure of a blueberry

Arid: The centre of a dried star anise fruit looks like some kind of sinister deep sea arthropod

One of the most valuable of spices: A coloured scanning electron micrograph of saffron

Carnivore's choice: The fibrous, chewy texture of raw meat is revealed by the strands of muscle from which it is formed, and the fat around it looks as sticky and viscous as you would expect

After the barbecue's done its work... This image shows how meat is transformed by the cooking process

Regular pattern: A coloured scanning electron micrograph of a cauliflower