Can Food Science Change Your Life?
This post is the start of a series. From now on, I will share the Food Science Bulletin series I have been doing on Linkedin in my native language for a while, under the name “Can Food Science Change Your Life”. If you are curious about scientific developments in food, follow me.
In recent years, we have seen the biggest breakthroughs in the food industry in the field of bioengineering. Indeed, this field fascinates people with its rapid progress and the technologies it has developed. I don’t know if we can feed on pills like in old sci-fi movies. But bioengineering will certainly be the leading field of food. Naturally, scientific news in the food industry often comes from this area.
As human beings, we have an evolutionary tendency towards sweet foods. Because sugar, which is a quick and easy source of energy, is a staple food for both the brain and muscles. But along with convenience foods, sugary foods are increasingly being used as marketing materials. Too much sugar consumption is also the root cause of many diseases, from obesity to diabetes. According to a study published in the Cambridge University Journal of Public Health Nutrition, the amount of added sugar in industrial foods has increased steadily over the past decade. The exciting thing is that while the amount of sugar added to beverages and foods increases in middle-income countries, it decreases in rich countries. As the demand for sweet foods in rich countries has reached saturation, healthy products are now more in demand. More sweet foods are demanded in regions such as China, Central Africa, and India. There is another important detail in the article. Studies mention that a man should not exceed 9 teaspoons of sugar a day, and a woman should not exceed 6 teaspoons of sugar. In Australia, more than 14 teaspoons of sugar are consumed per person daily due to convenience foods.
Vertical fields are among the most important food production technologies of recent years. These areas, where cluster plants such as lettuce, arugula, parsley, and tomatoes, which are called “greens” are grown, are very promising due to the use of zero pesticides. At the same time, there is no risk of disease due to its separation from external factors and it has a very serious water savings. As part of a project in the United Arab Emirates, the world’s largest vertical farming area is getting ready to go into operation. It is said that 2 million pounds of “high-quality leafy greens” will be grown annually on site.
The subject that we come across in each bulletin; is “Laboratory meat”. Although many people are against this concept, this technology, which is seen as one of the most reasonable solutions in the face of increasing population and decreasing resources, is promising with its disease and drug-free structure as in vertical fields. US-based food startup SCiFi Foods claims it will cut the cost of meat production in the lab by a factor of 1,000. Of course, it should be said that the company will benefit from CRISPR, a gene-editing technology, for this. The firm’s ultimate goal is to reduce the cost of a single hamburger patty from $325,000 (2013) to $1.
It turns out that just as we dry up and desert the soil with industrial agriculture, the complex food distribution network that surrounds the whole world also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. University of Sydney Environmental Modeling Researcher Mengyu Li; says that the global food system contributes 30% to transportation, production, and land use, and greenhouse gas emissions, and 6% of this figure comes from transportation alone. Stating that a much higher figure was calculated than their estimates, the researcher also states that the rich countries, which make up 12.5% of the total world population, have a 46% contribution to the “World’s Food Mile Emissions”.
According to a study led by Lawrence David, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University, creating a personalized fiber diet for people who eat low fiber levels is pretty pointless. As the subject of microbiota, which has been on the rise in recent years, has revealed, it cannot perform any function without the bacteria in the intestine. These beneficial bacteria not only protect the intestine from many diseases, including colon cancer but also prevent many problems of our age, such as obesity. The researchers say that fiber consumption doesn’t just make it easier for the gut to function, as advertisers say, it fuels your gut microbiota, helping to keep your microbiome quality high. Because the human body has evolved to consume high-fiber foods instead of low-fiber foods that are common in our age. Researchers who stated that people living in the USA get only 20–40% of the daily fiber they need; “If you don’t eat enough fiber, you don’t need to waste time on fiber supplements, just eat fiber-rich foods regularly,” she says.
