Page 41 - Food&Drink August 2022 magazine

1NUTRITION IS NOT CONFINED TO HEALTH FOODS OR MARKETING
We all have to face the fact that the food we consume not only impacts our own health and wellbeing, but that collectively we all impact the health and wellbeing of society.
Gidley says, “To be clear, this isn’t about a healthy part of the diet, or an unhealthy part of the diet. Nutrition is the sum total of the diet.”
Move over “health food”, “diet foods”, and “functional foods”, it is time for “foods with function”. Consumers want to know how a food will help them achieve health and wellbeing outcomes, with evidence of course.
2CREATE HEALTHIER PRODUCTS USING NOVEL TECHNOLOGIES Food processing technologies like pasteurisation, canning, spray drying, and retorting are stock-standard expectations.
It is time for novel processing technologies that can improve, or at the very least maintain food safety while enhancing health properties to step up.
Food structure technologies like 3D printing that incorporate bioactive compounds (e.g. nano-encapsulation) allow for targeted nutritional delivery. It
treatments and delivery.
The lag phase between medical
research and medical application is minimal and the system runs with application in mind.
This application-driven mindset needs faster adoption and buy-in throughout the food supply chain.
The lag phase between the research sector and the commercialisation sector in the food industry will inevitably shorten as we focus on transformative ideas for the creation of technologies that enable nutritional health outcomes through the foodsupply. ✷
✷ ABOUTTHEAUTHOR Dr Anneline Padayachee
is a nutritional food
scientist and science communicator
specialising in
demystifying the science
of food, digestion, and nutrient delivery in the body.
“ It is important for the food industry
to understand that nutrition is not the concept of a single food or a single nutrient. Rather nutrition comes from the sum total of food we eat over time.”
For example, non-thermal technologies like high pressure processing (HPP) that destroy microbes while maintaining nutritional composition. It wasn’t too long ago that HPP juice was novel, but as HPP moves more mainstream, applications include “cold pressed” milk, processed avocados, and short-shelf-life meal kits, all of which have better shelf life without compromising nutrition through heat or additives.
can also open opportunities for personalised nutrition innovation for specific dietary requirements such as allergies.
3
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSLATION IS
KEY FOR SUCCESS
The medical system, which largely functions for the treatment of ill-health,
sees researchers assessing diseases and age-related ill-health working hand-in-hand with clinicians to improve
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | August 2022 | Food&Drink business | 41
FOOD SYSTEM 4.0