Dietary Supplements and Functional Foods Quiz

Introduction to Food Science

• Nutraceuticals combine nutrition and pharmaceuticals, offering health benefits beyond nutrition.
• They are often marketed as dietary supplements, functional foods, or medicinal foods.
• Nutraceuticals include omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, and antioxidants.

Examples of Nutraceuticals

• Dietary Supplements: Vitamins (e.g., Vitamin D, Vitamin C), Minerals (e.g., Calcium, Magnesium), Amino Acids (e.g., Glutamine, Lysine), Omega-3 Fatty Acids (found in fish oil).
• Functional Foods: Probiotic yogurt, fortified cereals, plant-based milk with added calcium.

Herbal Extracts

• Green Tea Extract: Contains antioxidants, supporting metabolism and reducing inflammation.
• Turmeric: Contains curcumin, an anti-inflammatory compound aiding joint health.
• Ginseng: Used to boost energy and enhance focus.

Nutraceuticals vs. Health Supplements

• Nutraceuticals: Food-derived products offering health benefits beyond basic nutrition, often used for preventive or therapeutic purposes. Includes functional foods, fortified foods, dietary supplements, herbal products with bioactive compounds.
• Health Supplements: Products designed to supplement the diet with isolated nutrients (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes). Usually in tablet, capsule, powder, or liquid form. Aim at preventing or correcting nutritional deficiencies, supporting general health, without direct therapeutic claims.

Food Science

• Food science encompasses many applications, developing new food products, optimizing food processing and preservation, ensuring food safety and quality, and creating safety regulations and standards.
• Food technology applies food science to the selection, preservation, processing, and packaging of safe food, and its distribution.
• Food science includes growing, storing, processing, distributing, and packaging food.

Food Hygiene

• Food hygiene involves measures ensuring food safety and preventing harm to consumers:
• Hygienic food intake is crucial for preventing foodborne illnesses, which can be caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemicals. Symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, and even death.
• Food hygiene or food safety is the handling, preparing, and storing of food/drink to reduce the risk of consumers becoming sick.
• Food hygiene is essential for maintaining healthy food practices in any food handling industry.

Importance of Food Hygiene

• Food hygiene prevents germs from multiplying, ensuring daily healthy living.
• Maintaining good personal hygiene, particularly hand washing, contributes to preventing food-borne illnesses.
• Good food hygiene practice prevents high medical costs from food poisoning.

Food Safety Pillars

• Cleaning and Sanitizing: Fundamental aspect in creating a food safety system.
• Personal Hygiene: Eliminating cross-contamination by practicing hand washing and following clean hygiene practices, vital in eliminating cross-contamination and ensuring food safety.
• Food Storage: Categorizing food based on perishable and non-perishable characteristics.
• Temperature Control: Preventing bacterial growth and maintaining food quality by adhering to safe temperatures during food preparation and storage.
• Food Handling: Appropriately handling food during storage and preparation to prevent cross-contamination. Emphasizes the importance of hygiene when handling food.

Role of Pharmacists in the Food Sector

• Food Safety and Quality Control: Knowledge of biochemistry and toxicology ensures food is free from contaminants. Pharmacists assist with product testing, ensuring ingredient integrity.
• Nutraceuticals and Functional Food Development: Help formulate nutraceuticals, including functional foods and dietary supplements, ensuring safe and effective dosages and ingredient interactions.
• Regulatory Affairs and Compliance: Familiar with regulatory requirements by bodies like the FDA and EFSA. Responsible for labeling and ingredient disclosure, aiding transparency and trust.
• Research and Development: Innovating food products with better absorption, taste, and bioavailability by understanding ingredients, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacokinetics.
• Public Health and Nutrition Counseling: Educate the public on healthy food choices, dietary supplements and safe practices. May work with healthcare teams to support patients with food-drug interactions, deficiencies, and safe supplement use.
• Risk Assessment and Management: Assesses risks related to food ingredients, allergens, preservatives. Guides on safe consumption practices.

Milk and Milk Products

• Composition of milk includes water, proteins (casein and whey), fat, carbohydrates (lactose), vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.
• Milk products include colostrum (produced after parturition), whole milk, dry milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, fortified milk, flavored milk, organic milk, skim milk, and many others.

Various Milk Products

• Fermented Milk Products: Butter, ghee, buttermilk, yogurt, and cheese. These are made through fermentation processes.
• Non-Fermented Milk Products: Cream and Khoa. Created primarily through separating the fat from whole milk or evaporating the milk in open pans, respectively.

Milk Processing

• The three primary steps in milk processing include:
• Pasteurization: Eliminating pathogens to enhance shelf life. Milk is heated to lower temperatures (often less than 100°C) for a specified period.
• Homogenization: Preventing the fat droplets from separating from the milk, ensuring a smooth, uniform texture.
• Fortification: Increasing nutritional value of milk adding nutrients like vitamin A and vitamin D.

Allergy-Related Milk Processing

• Lactose Intolerance: Inability to digest lactose (milk sugar) due to a deficiency in lactase enzyme. Common symptoms include bloating, abdominal cramps, nausea, and diarrhea.
• Cow's Milk Allergy: Immune reaction to proteins in cow's milk. Usually manifests as allergic reactions in young children.

Meat and Poultry

• Meat includes beef, mutton/lamb, veal and pork.
• Poultry includes chicken, turkeys, ducks.
• Poultry is leaner than other types of meat in general.

Seafood

• Includes fish, shellfish, crustaceans.
• Seafood is a source of high-quality protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
• Seafood may help reduce risk of diseases like heart disease.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

• Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).
• Omega-3 fatty acids offer numerous health benefits, including heart health, diabetes control, and potential benefits against cancer.

Vitamins and Minerals in Seafood

• Seafood is a strong source of B-complex vitamins, niacin, B12 and B6.
• Excellent sources of minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, Selenium, Copper, Potassium, Iodine and Phosphorus.

Popular Seafood Dishes

Fruits and Vegetables

• Fruits are the edible portion of plants that develop from flowers, typically containing seeds.
• Vegetables are the edible parts of plants, including leaves, stems, bulbs, and roots.
• Fruits and vegetables are good sources of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, promoting health.

Fibers

• Non-digestible carbohydrates.
• Soluble fiber dissolves in water and can be metabolized by gut bacteria (improving gut health).
• Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and can't be digested by humans (but is broken down by bacteria in the gut). These types of fibers help with digestion (and bowel movements).

Fiber Feeds "Good" Gut Bacteria

• Friendly gut bacteria produce nutrients.
• These short-chain fatty acids feed cells in the colon, reducing gut inflammation and improving digestive health.

Health Benefits of Fibers

• Lower risk of Coronary Heart Disease, strokes, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and digestive diseases.
• Lowering blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels.
• Improving glycemia (blood sugar levels), insulin sensitivity, weight loss, and improving several gastrointestinal conditions.

Juices and Beverages

Alcoholic Beverages

Confectionary

• Fast-moving consumer goods (a type of food product)
• Includes sugar candies, chocolates, fruit preserves.
• Has a short shelf life as a result of high consumer demand and is perishable.

Chocolate Products

• A food product made from cocoa beans. Processed through several steps such as cleaning, roasting, shell removal, grinding and conching/tempering.
• An important economic factor for producing and consuming countries, due to the export revenues.

Plantation Products and Flavors

• Products grown under cultivation and used in agriculture.
• This includes a variety of crops for materials as well as consumable goods.
• Includes spices (such as almond, anise, cinnamon, clove, lemon), fruit and fruit/vegetable juices, edible yeast, herbs and materials, dairy products, meat, poultry, or seafood and eggs.