Not so long ago, food was something that the average Brit stuck on the end of their fork and consumed in cursory bursts of stoic mastication. Now it has become a thrilling new scientific frontier. We might gasp and giggle at the antics of celebrity chefs, but the real future of our food, as well as our nation’s health, lies in its formulation.
So as well as applauding Ramsay and Lawson, we should look to a new pantheon; a young generation of British experts working to perfect the life-enhancing power of our portions. This week we profile ten leading food scientists under the age of 35 who are using the latest nutritional research to help to create tomorrow’s menus. Their studies cover the spectrum of food: from effective weight-loss diets, through cancer-busting vegetables, to the next generation of probiotics. Here’s what’s cooking ...
GOOD FRUIT HARVEST
Yasmin Ioannides, 26, is in her third year of a PhD at the Institute of Food Research on food texture. She has been looking at a sample of the 4,000 varieties of apple available globally to assess the role of texture and quality in our food choices. She claims that fruit consumption is held back by a lack of product consistency. Her plan is to grade fruit in the packaging house, accounting for varying levels of quality and ripeness. Fruit which is already ripe on that day, and has the most nutrients, would be sent to local markets; less ripe fruit would be sent further away; labels would mark out ripe fruits from others, and sweet fruits from tangy varieties. Every taste would be catered for and nothing would be wasted.
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Top tip Be a choosy customer. It’s important that you find the fruit you like, since you’ll eat more of it. Ioannides suggests starting the day with a smoothie. It’s also a good way of using up fruits that don’t make the quality grade.
On the boil She hopes that we will be able to adapt our new knowledge of the role of texture to other products. “For ready meals, for example, we could keep texture and quality high so product desirability doesn’t drop, but reduce levels of sugar, fat and salt.”
DOWN TO THE BONE
Fiona Ginty, 33, of the Human Nutrition Research Unit, Cambridge, is studying the relationship between bone metabolism and nutrition. The metabolism is measured by mineral content and loss in bones; a high metabolism gives a greater risk of osteoporosis. Her study with Johns Hopkins University, in the US, was the first to indicate that volunteers with a high intake of fruit and vegetables also had a lower metabolic rate. Her volunteers ate nine portions of fruit and veg a day, sadly more than most of us manage.
Top tip Cut down salt; it increases calcium loss.
On the boil Nutrigenomics, the interaction between diet and your genes. “If you’re predisposed to a disease, you’ll be eating foods that target it.”
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KITCHEN SCIENCE
Rachel Edwards-Stuart, 23, serves up the science for three-star Michelin chef Heston Blumenthal. Sponsored by his restaurant, the Fat Duck, in Bray, she is doing a PhD in science-driven food, sharing her time between Nottingham University’s science labs and the restaurant kitchen. “The chefs look after the taste and I do the science,” she says. “It’s a tough job, as they have extremely developed tastebuds; even if I put 0.001 per cent of something into a dish, they identify it instantly.” Formerly a biochemistry student at Cambridge University, Edwards-Stuart spent ten months in Paris under the tutelage of the chemist Hervé This, who coined the term molecular gastronomy. She is working on a vegetable-based gelling agent made from modified celluloses, which gels on heating and melts on cooling, contrary to expectations. She says that using science in the kitchen enables us to improve the taste of food, to innovate cooking and help it to develop. There are also health implications. “If you know what your food does when you cook it, you can use the science to make it work in harmony with your body,” she says.
Top tip Experiment with new tastes, textures and aromas. Don’t be scared of novelty and modernisation in cooking, as it means understanding food better. “Once you know which vitamins are water-soluble, it makes sense to steam certain vegetables and to use the leftover water to make soup or stock.” Another tip straight from the science lab is to use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk for a frothy cappuccino. “It froths better than full-fat milk, as the fat takes hold of the proteins that would otherwise be stabilising the air bubbles.”
On the boil Edwards-Stuart is proud of her kitchen cupboard, which resembles a lab, but most of us are still sitting down to a roast chicken, as we have done for centuries. Scientific innovation doesn’t mean that our eating patterns will be transformed, she says, as this would underestimate the pull of things we know. “If you ask people to rate a chicken from an organic farm in the South of the France and one from Asda, they will go for the latter. Food science is about understanding what we’ve already got, questioning it, then using it to our advantage.”
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THE MODEL GUT
Martin Wickham, 34, completed a PhD at the Institute of Food Research on in-vitro (meaning artificial) models that recreate the processes of the gut. He is using man-made materials to build a mechanical model of the stomach and small intestines that mimics both its physical and biochemical activity. The aim is to understand how food structures are digested so that we can manufacture others that give positive health effects. “If we could create a food that, once eaten, digests slowly and releases a continuous stream of energy, this would leave us satisfied and less likely to snack, which would have implications for problems with obesity,” he says. “Eventually we may be able to alter manufactured foods, such as breads, biscuits and cakes, so they have healthier outcomes and deliver nutrients in the right concentration and at the right rate. A breakfast could keep you full all day.”
Top tip Chew your food. This breaks it down so that the nutrients can be absorbed by the body more easily when they reach the gut.
On the boil Instead of criticising people’s diets for not including adequate fresh foods, Wickham believes that we should make healthy choices easier by using food innovation to create processed foods with a positive health impact. “Manufactured foods are now a way of life, so we should work within that field,” he says.
PROBIOTICS PIONEER
Sean Hanniffy, 33, is a senior scientist at the Institute of Food Research. He is setting up a research group to develop probiotics (friendly bacteria) that can deliver vaccines for future generations. He hopes they will trigger an immune response against common diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis. The seed of this project came from his post-doctoral work in vaccine development at Cambridge University. “I helped to identify proteins that could be used in a vaccine to protect susceptible individuals, such as young children, from infectious diseases caused by streptococcal bacteria.” Although today’s probiotic products are used to encourage digestive health and have a beneficial nutrient component, they do not target specific diseases. Hanniffy wants to do better. “There is huge potential in using these bacteria as oral vaccines that are both inexpensive and amenable to large vaccination programmes in populations at risk, particularly in developing countries.”
Top tip Today’s probiotics enhance general wellbeing and may increase resistance to some diseases, so give them a try, Hanniffy says, especially the more recognised brands. The drawback is that some health claims need validating by scientific research.
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On the boil Probiotic formulations of the future could enable us to treat important diseases, particularly in the absence of an alternative treatment. Hanniffy hopes that they will become available over the counter, but first we must investigate their limitations as well as their potential.
SLIMMERS’ DELIGHT
Adam Collins, 31, is a nutrition lecturer and the head of academic studies at the British College of Osteopathic Medicine. His specialist area is nutritional assessment and he is researching the metabolic impact of low-carbohydrate diets: “Dieting is crudely reduced to energy intake, but we need to look at the bigger picture such as the way the body stores and uses fats during and after dieting.” He has completed a pilot study of people who followed the South Beach diet and is looking in detail at what happens when you starve the body of carbohydrate. “I am looking at whether the body overreacts to it when it is reintroduced, as this could disturb the balance between burning fats and burning carbohydrates. If it favours carbs as fuel for the body, it would lead to the overproduction of insulin, the storing of fat, and a host of other negative implications for health.”
Top tip: Tempting as a quick-fix diet might be, Collins doubts whether it can answer a serious weight problem. “Sustainable weight loss needs to be slow and steady, which means looking closely at more than just food intake. Nutritional status, overall health, motivational and even socioeconomic factors are all important.”
On the boil Diets will become more sophisticated and evidence-backed, he predicts. “The gimmicks will grow — the tapes, books, websites and food ranges — so people will buy into the lifestyle as much as the science.” Are they worth the effort? “They all work on the same principle,” he says. “By making people conscious of what they’re eating, whether by counting carbs or counting calories, they eat less.”
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THE IRON MAIDEN
Charlotte Armah, 35, a nutritional biochemist at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, is trying to identify the meat factor — the unique component in meat that allows us to process the iron in our diet more effectively. There are two types of iron: haem (from meat) and non-haem (from other foods). When we eat meat alongside non-haem iron foods, such as spinach, we absorb the non-haem iron far better. Iron is vital for forming haemoglobin, which transports oxygen round the body and helps us to fight infection. But Armah’s global research has shown that 10 per cent of women of childbearing age are deficient in it. “Once we have identified the meat factor, we can look for it in other foods such as vegetables. Then we can recommend what these women should eat with iron-rich foods to boost their absorption. This would be a breakthrough in countries where meat is a luxury.”
Top tip Drink orange juice with your breakfast cereal. Most cereals have a good dose of non-haem iron, so rather than drinking tea, which contains tannin and inhibits iron consumption, combine your morning bowl with something rich in vitamin C as this enhances your body’s ability to process it.
On the boil Armah believes that future food research will pinpoint the exact needs of individuals according to their genetic make-up rather than grouping people into age brackets or social categories. And everyone will be involved. “Recruiting volunteers for my research made me realise how engaged people are becoming with the relationship between food and health. Thank goodness, the dark days of nutritional ignorance seem to have passed,” she says.
VEGGING OUT
Amy Gasper, 27, is halfway through a PhD in nutrition at Nottingham University and also works at the Institute of Food Research. She is carrying out dietary trials on a new kind of broccoli that could reduce the risk of cancer. This super-broc, a cross between the normal vegetable and a species that grows on mountain-tops in Sicily, contains three times the amount of a cancer-busting phytochemical, sulforaphane, as the normal kind. “We’re looking at how this affects our cancer-fighting mechanisms,” she says.
Top tip Eat broccoli al dente. “Chop it up small, don’t steam it for longer than two minutes, otherwise the phytochemicals will be destroyed.”
On the boil “The aim for functional foods such as this is to prevent rather than cure diseases. We could abandon food supplements, maybe even certain drugs, and eat beneficial foods.”
FISH FOR HEALTH
Joanne Doleman, 33, is a research scientist in molecular and cell biology at the Institute of Food Research, specialising in colorectal cancer. She is looking at how to kill cancer cells by treating them with the fatty acids in fish oils. Her work on cell-culture models (that replicate what goes on in the body) suggests that fish oil causes cancer cells to commit suicide. She is working with the EU-funded Seafood Plus Project to clarify the extent to which fish consumption improves gastrointestinal health. She hopes to identify how, and which part of, the fish protects from the disease.
Top tip Eat sardines, mackerel, salmon, herring.
On the boil “The thought of getting cancer scares people, so if they know something as easy as eating a couple portions of oily fish a week offers protection, they’ll do it,” she says.
WINNING TRENDS
Claire Robertson, 29, is doing post-doctoral research in nutritional epidemiology at Imperial College, London. By using population-based studies that take account of people’s blood pressure, body mass index (a measure of body fat) and medical history, she is investigating the relationship between diet and disease. One recent project looked at the impact of Western eating trends in China and Japan. “In the more developed parts of these countries, communities are increasing their levels of alcohol consumption and processed fast foods.” In the UK Robertson is looking at whether genetically modified foods could be used to direct people to a healthier diet. “People with less money spend it on foods they are guaranteed to like, which often means skipping healthy options. They avoid fresh fruit and vegetables as they’re expensive, they don’t last long and they are of variable quality.”
Top tip Stay away from fast food. By comparison, a processed product such as genetically modified tomato purée is a winner: it’s an excellent source of lycopene and a good choice for consumers worried about cost and shelf-life.
On the boil If safety tests give GM foods the green light, they could help to wage war against fast-food culture, says Robertson. “GM fresh produce could be a way of making healthy foods attractive to everyone.”
RESEARCH: ZOË PAXTON, MIGUEL SANCHO