Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
(N/A)
COLUMBIA,MO 65211
Performing Department
Food Systems & Bioengineering
Non Technical Summary
Balanced human diets require the intake of both macro & micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), some of which are not included in the fast-paced lifestyle food options leading to obesity and malnutrition. With the increase in awareness about sustainability, there is a need to develop zero waste food processing technologies that can provide healthy nutritious food. While in pursuit for eco-friendly option for the environment, care should be taken to ensure both macro & micronutrient needs are met in foods. Prolonged negligence to foods without significant reserves of vitamins and minerals leads to hidden hunger. For example, current literature reports that Vitamin B12 deficiency afflicts at least 16% of the American population, which is nearly 50 million people. These deficiencies can result in fatigue, weight loss, changes in neurological functions, and in serious cases, permanent neurological damage and perhaps even death. The proposed project aims at developing innovative, sustainable food processing techniques and food products fortified with vitamins and minerals that could help to address malnutrition, hidden hunger. Developed food technologies could lead to development of new value- added food industries, start-ups to empower Missouri, US to become a global leader.
Animal Health Component
25%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
75%
Applied
25%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
FEAST research group uses sustainable food process engineering to develop innovative technologies to address the two interconnected challenges offood and nutrition security, locally and globally.Objective 1: Sustainable food process engineeringUp-cycling: Value addition to food loss/waste Zero Waste Processing: Post-harvest processing ofunderutilized agro-forestry fruits, vegetables, underutilized ancient grains - millets, amaranth, sorghum, mung beans, cowpeas, soybeans, nutsand medicinal plants. Food industry waste or by-products from dairy, meat industryObjective 2: Food fortificationFortification of foods with micro-nutrients (vitamins & minerals) eg. iron, zinc, iodine, folic acid, vitamin B12to prevent hidden hunger / malnutritionProcess development and scaling-up of therapeutic ready-to-eat fortified foodsObjective 3: Innovative technologiesNano /micro- encapsulation based oral delivery systems for micro-nutrients & medicinalbio-active compoundsIncorporating green nanotechnology, green chemistry & green engineering in food processingAll the three objectives are interconnected and complement each other, with basic food process engineering principles, equipment and tools. And all the three objectives align with the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2: Zero Hunger). The developed sustainable, nutritious food products and technologies can lead to translational research to full scale industrial operations / start-up companies. Developed food technologies on large scale operations could produce innovative value-added foods, address the issues of malnutrition, generate income, employment and improve the lives of people in the State of Missouri, Nation and Globally.
Project Methods
Interconnectedness of Objective 1, 2, 3:Steps listed in zero waste food processing can be adapted for food fortification (Objective 2) and innovative oral delivery systems (Objective 3).Major experiments will be conducted using - Spray drying that will explained in equipment section.AOAC established methods will be used to study the physical, chemical and microbiological properties of the new food products developed.Physical properties evaluation: particle size & shape, bulk density, water binding capacity, solubility, color, thermal properties, texture & rheological properties, water activity, pH, moisture contentChemical properties: Vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12, A, D, E, K, C), Amino acids, Fatty acids, Carotenoids, Minerals (Fe, Zn, I, Ca, Co) (in collaboration with analytical chemistry lab)Microbiological properties: Standard plate count, target microorganism will vary based on the food processed eg. Listeria Spp. in Ready-to-eat foods. (in collaboration with microbiology expert)Bioavailability: Understanding the bioavailability is important to study the uptake of nutrient from food by the human body. The developed food will be simulated at three processing conditions (oral, stomach, intestine) in-vitro.Eg:Total Solid ContentTotal solid content includes all the dissolved and suspended solids in a medium. It can also be expressed as a ratio of weights obtained before and after the drying process. It can be determined by gravimetric method using the oven drying in a laboratory oven at 105 ?C for 24 h (AOAC, 1990).Statistical MethodsResponse Surface Methodology (RSM) will be used for the optimization of the process during the spray drying operations. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) will be employed to study the effect of time, temperature and concentration. Experiment will be conducted with n ≥ 3, and expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (SD). The statistical significance will be evaluated by least square estimates and regression analysis. A p value of < 0.05 indicated significance. JMP 14 software (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA) and MS Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) will be used for statistical analysis.