Hot topics in food Flashcards
What is Health Canada’s definition of a health claim?
Health Canada’s definition:
– “A health claim is any representation in labelling or advertising that states, suggests, or implies that a relationship exists between consumption of a food or an ingredient in the food and a person’s health”
What is a disease risk reduction claim?
Disease risk reduction claim: A statement linking food or its contituent to reducing the risk of developing a diet-related disease or condition.
- “A healthy diet rich in a variety of vegetables and fruits may help reduce the risk of some types of cancer”
- “Oat fibre helps lower cholesterol”
What is a functional claim?
– Function claims: statement about the specific beneficial effects that the consumption of a food or food constituent has on normal functions or biological activities of the body
- “Consuming 7 grams of fibre from coarse wheat bran promotes regularity”
- “Vitamin A aids in the development and maintenance of night vision”
–> Not diesease, but more about maintaining better biological activity to prevent disease in the future.
What are the two subcategories of functional claims in Canada?
Nutrient function claim and probiotic claim
What is a nutirent function claim?
How much of a nutirent must be present in order to make that claim. The claim must meet the specific criteria for quantity and several other factors.
ex) if “excellent source of protein” in claimed the food must have a protein rating of 40 or more per reasonable daily intake
Protein rating= protein in a reasonable daily intake x Protein efficiency ratio (PER)
What is a probiotic claim?
Probiotics are microorganisms with certain human health benefits.
Types of probiotic function claims:
Strain-specific claims are claims about the health ebenfits or effect of a specific strain of probiotics. At the present time, no strain-specific claims have been accepted by Health Canada.
Non-strain-specific claim are statements about the nature of probiotics.
—> Conditions for accpetable non-strain specific claims for probiotics (eligible species, minimum levels in the product)
A serving of stated size of a product should contain a minimum level of 1.0 x 10^9 cfu of one or more of the eligible microorganism(s) –> 1 billion of the specific microorganism.
What are these all examples of?
Reviewed and accpeted health claims
–> supported by scientific evidence
What is a functional food (definition)?
A functional food is similar in appearance to, or may be, a conventional food that is consumed as part of a usual diet, and it demonstrated to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic diease beyond basic nutritional function i.e. they contain health-promoting bioactive compounds.
What is a bioactive compound? What is an example of a bioactive compound?
Bioactive compounds are the naturally occurring chemical compounds contained in, or derived from, a plant, animal or marine source, that exert the desired health/wellness benefit
ex) Omega-3 FA in flax or fish oils
Belta-glucans from oats and barley
What are nutralceuticals?
A nutrieceutical isa product isolated or purified from foods that is generally sold in medicinal forms not usually associated with foods.
Bioactive compounds that are isolated from the food and given as pharmaceuticals
A nutraceutical is demonstrated to have a physiological benefit or provide protection against a chronic disease
ex) Lycopene pills (from tomato), Omega-3 FA supplements (from fish oil)
What is the difference between nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals?
Nutraceuticals: Nutients for prevention of disease (bioactive compound)
Pharmaceuticals: Drugs for treatment of diease (with the use of bioactive compound in isolated form)
What is the difference between food and functional food?
Food • Basic Nutrition. Concentrates on nutrients for normal growth and development. For basic nutrients and energy
Functional foods • Beyond basic nutrition. Focus is on bioactive compounds such as phytochemicals in addition to basic nutrition. For additional health benefit and disease prevention.
What is the difference between functional food and nutraceuticals?
Functional foods • Similar to a conventional food. Contains naturally occurring bioactive components. Example: Fish oil, Fortified egg
Nutraceuticals • Isolated from a food and sold in dosage form. Contains naturally occurring bioactive components. Example: Omega-3 fatty acids (DHA, EPA) pills
What are non-prescription health products?
NHPs are defined as: – Vitamins and minerals, Herbal remedies, Homeopathic medicines, Traditional medicines such as traditional Chinese medicines, Probiotics, Other products like amino acids and essential fatty acids
• NHPs must be safe to use as over-the-counter products and not need a prescription to be sold.
What are the catergories of functional foods?
- Basic Foods – Natural: carrots (containing the natural level of the anti-oxidant betacarotene) – Processed foods: oat bran cereal (containing the natural level of betaglucan)
- Processed Foods with Added Ingredients – Calcium-enriched fruit juice
- Foods enhanced to have more of a functional component – Traditional breeding: Tomatoes with higher levels of lycopene (an antioxidant carotenoid) – Genetic engineering: Oat bran with higher levels of beta glucan – Special livestock feeding: Eggs with omega-3 from flax
What are the catergories of bioactive components?
Bioactive carbohydrates – Soluble fiber, Insoluble fiber, Resistant starches, Prebiotics
Bioactive lipids – SCFAs, Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, CLAs
- Bioactive peptides
- Bioactive polyphenols, Flavonoids and phenolic acids, Phytosterols
- Bioactive carotenoids- Beta-carotene, Lycopene
What are bioactive carbohydrates?
What is the difference between soluable and insoluable dietary fiber?
Some examples?
What are Resistant Starches?
• These are starch molecules that contribute fewer calories than regular starch molecules during digestion in the gastrointestinal tract
– RS molecules have lower glycemic index when consumed as part of a normal diet
– The Glycemic Index (GI) is a scale that ranks carbohydrate-rich foods by how much they raise blood glucose (sugar) levels compared to a standard food
– The use of RS in food could help people control the level of blood glucose and help prevent or reduce the impact of metabolic disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes
What are prebiotics?
Discuss bioactive lipids
Short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) – One of the key aspects of the beneficial effects of dietary fibers, prebiotics, and indigestible polyphenolic compounds is their ability to induce production of large quantities of SCFAs by bacteria in the colon
– Physiologically relevant SCFAs are mainly acetate (methyl), propionate (c3), and butyrate (c4).
– SCFAs promote intestinal health because they are the preferred respiratory fuel for colon cells
– Regular supply of SCFAs enhances blood flow within the colon, decreases luminal pH, and reduces the risk for the development of abnormal colonic cell population
– SCFAs also act as anti-inflammatory agents in colon
Discuss bioactive peptides.
Bioactive peptides are short-chain protein molecules (usually <20 AA residues) that when ingested can provide physiological benefits.
When present as part of the native polypeptide sequence, the peptide sequences do not exibit physological activities and are known to be inactive,
However, upon rlease by enzymatic or chemical hyrdrolysis, the free peptides become physiologically actie (bioactive)
Discuss bioactive polyphenols
• Polyphenolic compounds are commonly found in virtually all types of food plants. Traditionally, the polyphenols were considered for their adverse effects on human health because of their ability to bind and insolubilize various nutrients such as minerals (especially iron), proteins, and carbohydrates. However, recent research trends have identified certain food polyphenols as being potential health-promoting agents because of their ability to act as antioxidants and free radical scavengers
These polyphenols (Flavonoids) are secondary products of plant metabolism – Six subclasses of flavonoids: flavones, flavonones, isoflavones, flavonols, flavanols, and anthocyanins – Phenolic acids, structurally related to flavonoids, serve as precursors of flavonoid biosynthesis. e.g., ferulic acid
(six flavonoid subclasses have a benzene ring and are aromatics)
What is plant sterol structually similar to?
What effect does this similarity have?
What is phytosterol added to?
What food sources are these found in? Potencial benefits?
Alpha-carotene/Betacarotene, Lutein, Lycopene
Are all antioxidants
What is the most potent carotenoid antioxidant?
Lycopene is the most potent
Lycopene is the most common carotenoid in human body (naturally present in plasma & tissues (adrenal, liver, testes, and prostate gland) in higher concentrations than the other carotenoids
Where is there the higher lyopene bioavailabilty?
What are probiotics? Where are they found?
What is the differnece between probiotic yogurt and normal yogurt?
Where is resveratrol found?
How much do you need for it to have health benefits?
Resveratrol- red wine
Resveratrol is produced by plant as an “immune” response to bacterial and fungi
• Rat models showed positive results indicating that it has anti-cancer, antiinflammatory, blood-sugar lowering
About 3–5 g of resveratrol is required in order to get significantly blood sugar lowering effect
- Typical amount of resveratrol in red wine is approximately 5 mg/L
- That is between 500 and 1000 bottles of red wine a day! So just eat grapes
How does passage through the small intestine wall influence bioavailability?
What are the benefits of biotechnology?
What are some examples of classical biotechnology? How is biotechnology being used now?
How do herbicide-tolerant GMO plants work?
Herbicides are used to kill weeds without causing any harm to the desired plant
- It inhibits the activity of the target enzymes in weeds that control their metabolic reactions
- Conventional spraying method for weeding – There are many herbicides that is specific to plant species. – A combination of these herbicide can be used to kill different kinds of weeds without hurting the crop plants.
- Issues – Need a lot of applications (variety, quantity and occasions), could be toxic to the environment, need to apply at specific times
How do insect repelling plants work?
How do draught-resitant plants work?
What was the idea behind Flavr Favr tomatoes?
Discuss the development of Canola oil
Discuss golden rice
What are the major concerns about biotechnology-derived foods?
Discuss geneticually modified food in Canada
How is GM food labelled in Canada?
What is the scientific evidence on GM foods?
What is organic food?
What are some requirements for organic farming?
What are some organic labelling regulations?
How does organic farming adress the use of pesticides?
One of the most comprehensive study of the
relationship between pesticide residues in
conventional foods and those in organic foods was conducted by Baker et al. (2002)
– The levels of pesticide residues in organic foods appear to be lower than those in conventional foods
– However, pesticide levels in conventional foods is typically far below the toxicity levels for humans and animals
How is said about nturients and toxicity in organic foods?
What is nanotechnology?
Why use nanotchnology?
Where has nanotechnology been used in the past?
WHat is a nanoparticle that is already in our food?
Pics of the nanostructure of fat crystal network
How will nanotechnology help with the detection of bateria and food tracking
How nanotechnology is used in food packaging?
Discuss nanocomposites, active packaging and intelligent packaging.
What are the basic components of nanocomposites?
What are the types of nancomposites between polymers and layered silicates. (3 types)
How are nanocomposites formed?
Melt intercalation
Nanocomposites and the gas properties of the three polymers?
How is the tortousity factor calculated?
What does nanoscale coloidal assembly in food mean?
What is a nano-laminated emulsion?
• Formation of nano-laminated coatings of
biopolymers on emulsion droplets
– First, oil-in-water emulsion stabilized by negatively charged proteins (e.g. whey proteins) are prepared
– Next, a positively charged biopolymer (e.g., chitosan) can be added to the solution to deposit on the negatively charged droplets by electrostatic interaction
– The positively charged droplets can also be coated with another negatively charged biopolymer (e.g., pectin) to improve strength of the interfacial layer
What are nanoemulsion?
What are the advantages of nano emulsions?
Conventional emulsion vs nanoemulsion
What are the Canadian gv’t regulations on nanotech?
What is entomophagy?
Discuss the nutrition of eating insects
What food of ours do we already have inscets in?
What needs to be considered going forward in insect stuff?
What is clean meat?
When was the first lab grown chicken meat done? Where?
How ‘clean meat’ will be produced at industrial scale?
