Location: Healthy Processed Foods Research
Project Number: 2030-30600-004-003-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2026
End Date: Sep 30, 2027
Objective:
(1) Characterize carbohydrate-rich functional food ingredients from underutilized agri-crop resources and upcycled byproducts.
(2) Evaluate nutrition- and health-related impacts of the ingredients in rodent models to gain insights into their potential beneficial health effects.
Approach:
Task 1: Characterization of functional food ingredients from underutilized carbohydrate-rich agri-crop resources and byproducts. We will contribute to the physicochemical characterization of food ingredients from carbohydrate-rich sources, specifically those from breadfruit and lima beans. Most notably, we will evaluate the ingredients' in vitro digestibility and assess carbohydrate structural features that are implicated in digestion and metabolism (e.g., amount of slowly digestible starch, amylose:amylopectin ratio, degree of polymerization).
Task 2: Evaluation of the potential health benefits of ingredients in rodent models. We will assess the nutritional and health-related implications of the developed ingredients from breadfruit and lima bean through several approaches in rodent models, with a particular focus on indicators of digestibility and gut-brain signaling. Notably, we will evaluate the postprandial (post-feeding) response to the ingredients through indicators in the blood (e.g., blood glucose, gut peptides such as glucagon-like peptide-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide) as well as perform terminal tissue collection post-feeding to examine metabolic markers in tissues such as the intestine and liver along with the expression of feeding-related genes in the brain (using ELISA assays and qPCR). These experiments will guide the continued development of carbohydrate-rich ingredients in Task 1 as well as future research, and they are expected to reveal insights into novel connections between starch physicochemical features and health-relevant outcomes.