Project

How low can you go

The daily intake of sodium, sugar, and fats by modern western consumers, looking for convenience in preparation combined with the increasing snacking trend, is too high. This leads to major health issues and rising costs of healthcare. In many countries, both the food industries and consumers have pledged to make western diets healthier. However, the assortment of processed foods meeting nutrition and health requirements is still small and available products do not often meet convenience and expectations, thus compromising consumers food based personal health.

Goal and approach:

To achieve breakthrough innovations in the following areas:

  1. fundamental insights into the functional role of ingredients and their interactions in the complex food matrix during processing,
  2. physical and chemical based models that link (thermo-dynamical) ingredient properties and ingredients composition to the mechanical and sensorial properties of food,
  3. fundamental insights into the role of stevia derived glycosides and their interactions with other sugars, sweeteners and enhancers on sweetness perception and metabolism.

Using state-of-the-art technologies two work packages are defined, being

WP1: Functionality of stevia derived glycosides

WP2: Ingredient interactions and processing in complex food matrices

 

Desired impact:

The proposed project aims at developing new strategies for developing convenient and healthy(e.g. sugar and/or fat reduced) foods (impact for food sector and society) allowing food manufacturers (impact for the food sector) to produce new food products that meet convenience, shelf-life, nutrition, health and preference requirements (impact for the society) and will be successful on the market. The following deliverable is intended:

  • Knowledge-based strategies to create foods with a healthier formulation while meeting consumers expectations

 

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