Walking down a grocery store aisle, you can read packaging heralding a food’s protein content or antioxidant claim. But how much of that is actually relevant for the human body?
Prabhashis Bose is trying to find out.
Bose, a doctoral student in the food science and technology program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, is learning more about how the body processes food during digestion. Bose hopes the work helps people get the nutrients they need and also helps producers create better food.
“Food is something everyone uses and will continue to be a cornerstone of society,” Bose said. “(The research is) helping to understand how to connect food science with agriculture and human health.”
In his work in the FoodBioPep lab of Kaustav Majumder, associate professor of food science and technology, Bose examines how the digestive process transforms the food we eat, including what the numbers on a nutritional label actually mean in practice. Bose and others in the lab simulate human gastrointestinal digestion one step at a time. First, a food sample goes through a machine that mimics chewing. It then moves into a chamber designed to act like the stomach, where acidity and digestive enzymes are carefully controlled. Next, the conditions are changed to mimic the small intestine, with a higher pH and a new set of intestinal enzymes. Finally, the sample is placed on a layer of human intestinal epithelial cells to see which compounds have the potential to get absorbed.
“This entire process mimics how we would digest the food in an ideal condition,” Bose said.
Through looking at the data gathered from the sample before and after this process, the team can learn how much is accessible for utilization by the body (the bioaccessible portion) and eventually what is bioavailable for absorption for processes like building muscle.
Bose said this data can also help food professionals learn more about crops and crop breeding. With this, producers can identify better breeding and growing methods to create, for example, high protein or anti-inflammatory foods.
“Agriculture is one of the strengths of the university, and one of the key goals of agriculture is to make better food for every person and increase nutritional content like high protein or high fiber,” Bose said. “We claim a certain food is high protein, but is the protein actually something the humans can utilize? Our research helps us understand if what we are claiming on the nutritional label is actually true.”
Bose had long been interested in food science and nutrition, but he really settled on his area of study when he was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. His experience helped him recognize how food needs vary from person to person and that this research could help meet those individualized needs.
“It made me curious to understand how different foods react differently in the body and why some foods work and some don’t,” Bose said. “I found out that Dr. Majumder works in this area of how food proteins impact our body and how digestion changes different protein components during the digestion process.”
For this project, Bose recently was named a fellow of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. One of 28 fellows in the ninth cohort, Bose received the Rockey FFAR Scholarship to support the professional development program. He said the opportunity will allow him to build leadership skills and learn more about science communication.
“It’s very important that we communicate the science we do in an effective way so that people are more aware and our research literally finds meaning and purpose,” Bose said. “I was very fortunate and thankful that I was selected.”
Bose hopes this research, along with further collaboration with nutritionists and agriculture professionals, can improve food product development, food systems and nutrition information. He said sharing data and working together helps all areas of these industries get more information to apply to their goals, like developing a trait in a new crop or discovering more about how the body reacts to it.
“I would like to do more meaningful collaborations with agriculture stake holders as well as industry and improve different food systems and address the issue of food security,” Bose said. “Different people have different needs. Right now the nutrition framework is one-for-all, but going forward, as we see different humans have different metabolic and physiological conditions and needs, this research can optimize what is working for one individual.”
