According to OECD, Estonia is one of the EU countries where obesity and diabetes are most prevalent. According to WHO, every fifth child in Estonia is overweight. Therefore, our task is to help people reduce their consumption of sugar, salt, and fat, which are associated with obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. The Estonian food industry is already committed to food reformulation, transforming former sinners in to saints. For example, muffin, which has been a delightful dessert in the past, has now become a food with reduced sugar, extra fiber and with a Nutriscore value B. However, its health impact is noticeable only when the taste is equally enjoyable and consumers accept it. This reformulation project explores sweet-tasting and healthy peptides and oligosaccharides to replace added sugars, the synergy of flavor compounds and salt, and the effect of fats on flavour. We aim to have a positive impact on public health without compromising quality, safety and taste.
The consumption of dietary fibres (DF) should be increased to comply with the dietary guidelines and fuel various beneficial metabolites produced by the gut microbiota such as short chain fatty acids (SCFA). Microbiota also produces gases that, in sensitive persons including irritable bowel syndrome patients (IBS), trigger disturbing and at worst disabling gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, leading to the avoidance of fibre-rich foods. The gas formation patterns and amounts are highly individual and interrelated to GI parameters such as gut pH and transit rate. FIBRE-MATCH develops and validates a concept to match DF types to gut microbiome subtypes for optimal metabolic output. The project identifies major DF-metabolising microbiome types prevalent in Europeans using existing metagenomic, dietary and GI symptom data, considering also endogenous glycans. Representative microbiomes and DF will be characterized in vitro to identify metabolic phenotypes. DF combinations yielding an optimal gas to SCFA ratio in vitro will be used to develop fermented food prototypes for proof-of-concept studies in healthy volunteers and IBS patients, to study whether consumption of the microbiome-tailored food improves GI symptoms and IBS markers compared to unmatched fibre, using breath monitoring, metagenome, metabolome and glycan analyses. Biosamples from the healthy subjects will be used to evaluate the effects of DF on risk markers of noncommunicable diseases using metabolomics approaches. A novel database of chemical composition of DF in high-fibre foods will be developed to enable analysis of nutrition-microbiome interactions at functional and molecular level. FIBRE-MATCH fits to the Precision Nutrition Challenge portfolio as it develops fundamental knowledge, capabilities and resources that foster precision nutrition innovations related to individually-tailored microbiome-targeting foods, microbiome-based stratification, and ultimately decreasing the fibre gap.
Prolonging the shelf life of food is important to reduce food losses in supply chain and consumption as well as enable products to be marketed longer distance. Measures to extend the shelf life are directly related to food safety and quality; however, its sensory properties are best within a certain optimal shelf life. Although human sensory receptors are set by nature to identify food safety risks, good taste does not necessarily guarantee food safety and vice versa. Safety risks are particularly high for unpasteurised products with neutral pH. The temperature of 2-6°C used in the supply chain does not prevent the growth of spoilage, including pathogenic, bacteria and thus limits the shelf life. This project explores various technical options for extending the shelf life of food without sacrificing safety and quality: incl. aseptic production, rapid cooling, use of ice binding proteins and storage temperatures of -2...0°C as well as control of essential flavor components.