The ultimate health snack
Combine nutrition and pharmaceutical for nutraceutical, food that provides health and medical benefits including the prevention and treatment of disease. Many 'health foods' fall into this category but the problem is that they may also contain ingredients that can prove harmful in certain circumstances, such as too much saturated fat. The next step on from healthy food is to optimise the health benefits. With the benefits of modern technology, the NUTRA-Snacks project aimed to produce ready-to-eat snack food high in natural metabolites with no detrimental ingredients. In particular, NUTRA-Snacks focused on ready-to-eat food for the breakfast and sport market. The researchers used plant cells and in vitro culture systems with up-to-the-minute biotechnological methods to produce new high-quality snacks. Ingredients promoting the prevention or cure of cancer, inflammatory diseases, viral, fungal and bacterial infection, and reducing hypertension and blood cholesterol were incorporated. Future research planned by NUTRA-Snacks includes ironing out gaps in knowledge regarding plant in vitro culture and plant cell viability. Plants also tend to have much more complex and longer biosynthetic pathways involving many more enzymes than animals. Another drawback of using plant products is that high-cost bioreactors are required for the necessary aseptic conditions. Project scientists successfully developed plant cell and in vitro culture systems for production of high-quality foods that are ready to eat and have functional health promoting properties. Further work between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research institutes will help in the future commercialisation of agro-food products that boost human health.
