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Folate and Its Importance Beyond Pregnancy

Folate is the generic term for vitamin B9, a water-soluble vitamin found naturally in many foods, including dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, and legumes. It is required for DNA replication and as a substrate for various enzymatic reactions involved in amino acid synthesis and vitamin metabolism. The prevalence of folate deficiency is quite variable worldwide. The leading causes of folate deficiency are low intake, malabsorption, or drug use. Patients of all age groups may develop folate deficiency; however, primary age groups include preschool children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Thus, it is essential to consider the conditions associated with altered folate status and their consequences.

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Alternative proteins: Sustainability and regulatory aspects

The protein demand is expected to increase for the next decades. Meat consumption is no more sustainable, with the effect of animal agriculture on emissions, use of water and land resources. Finding alternatives to meat is a way to tackle climate change. Most of the alternative proteins have lower carbon footprint than meat, as shown by LCA studies. Microbial protein and in particular yeast protein, is an interesting option in terms of sustainability. The regulatory pathway to market involves a safety assessment, with the GRAS in the US and the Novel Food regulation in the EU being most common procedures. Political commitment including consumer awareness and education strategies would be key to further develop the alternative protein market.

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“ProFuture”: an EU-funded project on microalgal proteins for the food and feed of the future

Microalgae are tiny microorganisms that carry out photosynthesis and fix CO2 by releasing oxygen. They are rich in valuable nutrients (proteins, essential fatty acids, minerals, vitamin B12), non-competitive for agricultural land and (fresh) water, and are significantly more productive than agricultural plants. However, they are a “niche crop” in the food and feed industry. The EU-funded project ProFuture has the goal of promoting the future use of microalgae in the food and animal feed industry. How this goal can be reached, what obstacles need to be overcome and how the future use of algae could look like will be addressed in this article.

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Still using synthetic preservatives? – Consumer demand and regulatory issues drive innovation and urgency in natural alternatives

Consumers today are increasingly seeking clean label, natural ingredients. This article examines how the shift away from synthetic ingredients is driving innovation throughout the food and beverage industry towards natural, plant-based alternatives and solutions for preservation and shelf life. Natural preservatives are in high demand as regulatory requirements are increasingly banning or discouraging the use of many synthetic ingredients commonly used, such as EDTA. Advancements in R&D have led to the discovery of a variety of botanical ingredients that demonstrate excellent performance as natural preservatives. Many of these have been shown to preserve nutritional and sensory loss prevention just as effectively as synthetics making them ideal for clean label applications while effectively extending shelf life, reducing food waste and financial loss, and preserving food safety and integrity.

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Ingested cannabis: The long road from 5000BC to 2022 and beyond

For five millennia, cannabis plants have been ingested to provide health and wellness effects. These products contain a host of many classes of chemical constituents, the most bioactive of which is a mix of cannabinoids. The century long prohibition on research of these products (during the emergence of pharmacology as a field) meant that the newly emerged Cannabis industry was generally relegated to using those same uncharacterized plant extracts in products. We are now in an era when standardized methodologies for production and measurement are being adopted, and will open a path for innovations leading to improved manufacturing, product safety, palatability and bioavailability. It is only then that the true potential of these products can be accurately defined.

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Purolite – The vital role Purolite resins plays across FOOD industries

Purolite’s Chromalite chromatography product range provides a comprehensive line of products for a variety of applications.
Our ChromaliteTM resins feature the most desirable properties of modern chromatography resins including mechanical robustness, inertness, pH stability and flexibility, through their compatibility with organic solvents and aqueous solutions. The range of particle sizes provides scalability from analytical to industrial-scale purification and the ChromaliteTM range also features a selection of porosities, surface areas and chemistries, designed to meet the needs of customers in a wide range of industries.

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The “AMBROSIA” project: a new approach for the prevention of undernutrition in cardiovascular diseases targeting the microbiota-inflammation-brain axis – Targeting undernutrition through the microbiota-inflammation-brain axis

The European project “AMBROSIA” conducted at the University of Florence, fits with the areas of food and health, tackling one of major social challenges in current healthcare: the undernutrition in “older” population, focused on patients with Heart Failure (HF) and Atrial Fibrillation (AF). Undernutrition is one key factors leading through inflammation, to loss of function, disability, frailty and, ultimately, to death. A vicious cycle “of inflammation and cachexia” determines a progressive cognitive decline and lean body mass regression. Since the inflammation is closely related with the health status of intestinal microbiota, shaping its composition with a probiotic-based food, namely the AMBROSIA chocolate bar, specifically enriched with key nutrients could be an efficacious and safe approach to break this cycle improving the cognitive functioning and skeletal muscle mass. A prospective interventional clinical study will be performed at the University of Florence to asses the bar efficacy on undernutrition prevention. Statistical and Machine Learning methods will be developed for the identification of features from the “Microbiota-Inflammation-Brain axis” used as predictive undernutrition biomarkers.

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