Location: Healthy Processed Foods Research
Project Number: 2030-30600-005-001-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Apr 1, 2026
End Date: Jun 30, 2028
Objective:
(1) Develop nutritionally and functionally enhanced food ingredients from agricultural crops and their by-products using novel and cost-effective food processing technologies.
(2) Apply the developed healthy food ingredients in model food systems to improve their health benefits and marketability.
Approach:
Task 1: Development of novel healthy food ingredients utilizing advanced food processing technologies.
Agricultural crops and their by-products will be processed and upcycled using novel and economically viable food processing technologies (e.g., controlled germination, fermentation, combined physical-chemical treatments) to develop value-added food ingredients, such as flours, plant proteins, dietary fibers, and phytochemicals-rich fractions. Processing conditions will be systematically optimized to enhance nutritional quality and techno-functional performance of the resulting food ingredients, while maintaining processing feasibility and cost-effectiveness. The developed food ingredients will be subsequently characterized by nutritional (proximate composition, anti-nutritional factors, in vitro digestibility, etc.), structural (microstructure, secondary/tertiary structures, etc.), and functional (solubility, water-/oil-holding capacity, emulsifying, foaming, gelation, etc.) properties to establish mechanistic links between processing, structure, and functionality.
Task 2: Application of developed healthy food ingredients in model food systems to improve their healthiness and marketability.
Nutritionally and functionally enhanced food ingredients will be incorporated into representative model food systems (e.g., bakery products, dairy or dairy alternative products) to demonstrate their performance in real food formulations and improve the healthiness and marketability of the fortified food products. Product quality attributes, including physicochemical, sensorial, textural, and functional properties, will be investigated to establish structure-function-applicability relationships and enable targeted applications of the developed healthy food ingredients in real food systems.