Food and Drink is a hugely important sector for Scotland and the UK economy, generating a turnover of £14.4 billion and £5.3 billion of GVA (gross value added) for the Scottish economy in 2014 alone. This sector not only has an impact on Scotland’s economy but food production can also has a significant influence on our environment, health and society and these are all areas that SEFARI research aims to a make a difference.
You may be wondering what we can do to help? Well, at the Centre for Sustainable Cropping (CSC) near Dundee, we’re aiming to develop a cropping system that can produce high quality food, whilst still maintaining a healthy environment. This means using what we understand about ecology to work with the environment to improve the health and physical structure of the soil, minimise the losses of nutrients and chemicals from cultivated fields, and support a rich variety of farmland wildlife.
Dr Madalina Neacsu is a research fellow at the Rowett Institute who trained as a biochemical engineer and did her PhD on Natural Products Chemistry. She now specialises in natural products food formulation and bioactivity and, in a previous role, worked commercially overseeing the development of several plant-based bioactive formulations for use in food ingredients that subsequently received EFSA approval.
Vanessa is a principal investigator and registered nutritionist. Her research interest is in how bioactive components from the diet may help improve health, using a combination of clinical and dietary intervention trials, and experimental models of health and disease. Vanessa’s current research focuses on how polyphenol-rich foods may improve heart health, in collaboration with the NHS.
Rowett Institute (Room 5.044)
Forresterhill Campus
Aberdeen
AB25 2ZD
I am a Principal Statistician at BioSS and have worked on a wide range of applications of data analysis in health studies, as well as arranging and delivering training in statistics.
More details at http://www.bioss.ac.uk/people/graham.html
Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland
Rowett Institute
University of Aberdeen
Foresterhill
ABERDEEN
AB25 2ZD
I am a principal investigator and the research in my laboratory is focused on advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) in the diet. During food processing AGEs are formed as the result of the Maillard reaction and are absorbed by the body during digestion. To investigate how dietary AGEs contribute to diet induced conditions such as type 2 diabetes and dementia, we are using human intervention studies to test the effects of highly processed foods high in AGEs on sensitive measures of metabolic health and cognition.
Baukje is an internationally recognised nutrition scientist with over 25 years of expertise in clinical and dietary intervention trials to assess how diets, foods and nutrients affect disease risk and resilience to disease development.
Her research interests include:
Jennie is a Professor in Sustainable Nutrition and Health. Her research is interdisciplinary and about the impact of dietary habits on climate change and land use, with implications for food and nutrition security. This includes understanding eating behaviours in particular how to move people to eating healthy and sustainable diets, especially in the UK. She led the Livewell project funded by the WWF, the first to model sustainable diets that were both nutritionally adequate and had lower impact on climate change.
Recent research suggests eating most of our calories in the evening – the pattern most common in the UK – may also be linked to obesity. We’re not alone in eating late. As our lifestyles have become more demanding and irregular, so have our meal patterns. Compared with 30 years ago, more meals are skipped, or eaten on the go, and later in the day.
This article we will explain some some of the ways we are incorporating healthy ingredients from a variety of sources into recipes to develop novel formulations of foods.