PepsiCo has announced a partnership with renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria to create healthier snack foods, breakfast options and convenience foods. According to the company, Adria, whose restaurant in Spain has won numerous awards, will “help develop new methods and concepts for creative food innovation” by sharing “creative principles, methods, procedures and techniques.” PepsiCo’s goal is to create snacks and other foods that will broaden the company’s line of healthy food choices using less fat and oil. The company hopes to develop “taste enhancement ingredients and natural preserving techniques” that will achieve that goal.

Researchers in the U.S. have developed a way to target and mark specific stem cells so they can be inhibited from producing new fat cells. The researchers believe their discovery could help in the development of drugs that slow the ability of stem cells to direct fat production. Using small artificial proteins (peptides) in a mouse model the researchers identified a marker on the surface of adipose stem cells. The new peptide targeting technology can be used to trace adipose stem cells in the body and then control their elimination. The researchers hope to conduct animal tests to see if the identified peptides can be developed into compounds that deplete the adipose tissue progenitors and provide long-term control of white fat.

Researchers in Spain have discovered a potent natural oxidant that is synthesized in tomato plants when they are subjected to biotic stress. The antioxidant power of the new compound is about 14 times higher than that of resveratrol, an antioxidant found in red wine that slows cellular aging. It is also 4.5 times more potent than vitamin E and 10 times more potent than vitamin C, according to the researchers, who said the substance could have multiple applications. In the food industry it could be used as a preservative because it retards lipid oxidation and could prevent fats and oils from becoming rancid. Other possible uses are as a gasoline preservative and in the cosmetics industry in skin care products.

The higher rate of neural tube defects (NTDs) among newborns in the U.S. Hispanic community could be prevented by fortifying corn masa flour with the B vitamin folic acid, according to a research commentary by the March of Dimes. Hispanic women are about 20 percent more likely to have a child with spina bifida or anencephaly than non-Hispanic white women, probably due to the their lower intake of folic acid. Corn masa flour is used to make common Latin American food products such as corn tortillas and tamales. The U.S. FDA has long required fortification of cereal grains used in bread and pasta with folic acid, with the result that NTDs have dropped by 33 percent. Fortification of the flour with folic acid must be approved by the FDA.

Researchers in Hong Kong and Singapore have found that grape seed and clove bud extracts  seem to cut the formation of the carcinogen acrylamide in food products made from potatoes by 60 percent. Grape seed compounds known as proanthocyanidins reduced acrylamide production by 62.2 percent in potato-based foods. However, in toher carbohydrate-based foods, such as cookies, extracts of clove buds reduced acrylamide development by 51 percent. Acrylamide is produced when sugar and the amino acid asparagine are subjected to heat. The process, known as the Maillard reaction, results in the brown color of baked, friend or toasted foods. The compound, however, was found to cause cancer in laboratory rats.

Danish food ingredients supplier Chr. Hansen announced the re-opening of its refurbished food color expertise center in Montpellier, France. According to the company, the facilities will serve as a center of innovation focusing on “new, natural appearances” for food products. The re-opened Montpellier plant underwent a makeover that included an expansion and renewal of the laboratories and a beefed up R&D and application staff. The center will focus on application work within beverages, dairy, fruit preparations and phytonutrients, four key Chr. Hansen color business industries. In April, the company opened two extended color production plants in Peru and Denmark.

A study conducted in Taiwan has found that a compound found in blueberries thwarts the asthma-inducing inflammation caused by a chemical associated with environmental pollution. The blueberry compound, known as pterostilbene, negated the impact of benzo(alpha)pyrene (BαP), a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon found in cigarette smoke and industrial waste that causes inflammation of bronchial cells. In earlier studies, resveratrol, found in grapes and red wine, had been shown to reduce the inflammation somewhat. But researchers in this study showed that “pterostilbene is more potent than resveratrol in suppressing BαP-mediated airway remodeling” and “is capable of preventing BαP-associated asthma.”

French scientists have found evidence that regular use of olive oil for both cooking and as a dressing can significantly reduce the risk of a stroke in older people. The researchers analyzed the medical records of 7,625 people ages 65 and older. None had a history of stroke. They categorized the subjects by no use of olive oil, moderate use (in cooking or dressing) or intensive use (in cooking and dressing). Over five years, those who regularly used olive oil for both cooking and as dressing had a 41 percent lower risk of stroke compared to those who never used olive oil. “These results suggest a protective role for high olive oil consumption on the risk of stroke in older subjects,” the researchers concluded.

Swiss researchers who tested food packages made from recycled cardboard found that harmful mineral oils from printing inks can contaminate food even when recycled materials are only used for the transport cartons. In their study, individual packs of noodles rapidly absorbed ten times the recommended levels of contaminating oils from the transport boxes made from recycled fibers. The standard limit for the oils is 0.6mg in each kg of food, the researchers said. But after standing in packaging for just six weeks, food that had a two-year shelf life could contain 6.1mg/kg of the oils. Some companies have switched to packaging made from fresh fiber paperboard printed with inks free of mineral oil. But their efforts are pointless because recycled cardboard transport boxes contain the contaminating oils.

A Canadian study in mice has found that the risk of cancer is significantly reduced by eating a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein. The researchers implanted different strains of human or mouse cancer cells in the mice, then fed them either of two diets. The Western-style diet comprised 55 percent carbohydrates, 23 percent protein and 22 percent fat. The other, which approximated the South Beach diet, comprised 15 percent carbohydrate, 58 percent protein and 26 percent fat. Tumor cells grew consistently slower on the high-protein diet, researchers found. And half of mice genetically engineered to breast cancer that ate the Western diet developed breast cancer in their first year of life. None of the high-protein diet mice developed cancer.

With total advertising spending up 4.4 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to industry analyst Kantar Media Intelligence, Procter & Gamble held onto its top rank with spending of $720 million, down 5.9 percent. P&G cut spending for its portfolios of OTC remedies and household cleaning products and redirected the money towards personal hygiene and hair care brand lines, Kantar said. Packaged goods marketers -- affected by the ongoing trend of budget-conscious consumers turning to lower priced brands -- boosted ad spending. Expenditures for food and candy rose 4.7 percent to $1.7 billion and personal care products increased 10.5 percent to $1.4 billion. Restaurants, also sensitive to changes in discretionary consumer spending, spent $1.5 billion, an increase of 6.2 percent.

About 45 percent of U.S. grocery shoppers are worried enough about the unstable economy – including a four percent food inflation rate – that they continue to purchase cheaper private label food items, according to a survey by business advisory firm Alixpartners LLP. The attraction of private label food items applies across all major food product categories: dairy, frozen foods, fresh produce, flour- and produce-based shelf stables, and refrigerated meat. The survey also found that “price” and “quality” are the two most important criteria when selecting private label items: more than 60 percent indicated that price is the most important factor.

Retail sales of organic and natural foods in 2010 in the U.S. rose nine percent from 2009, reaching $39 billion, according to market researcher Packaged Facts. That trend is likely to continue: the company sees a big increase – 45 percent – in sales in 2011 and a 103 percent increase through 2015. Companies like PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay are taking advantage of the natural/organic buying trend among shoppers by revamping product lines toward natural-ingredient offerings. Three of its biggest brands – Lay’s potato chips, Tostitos tortilla chips, and SunChips multigrain snacks – will all be made with natural ingredient by the end of 2011. And, since the Frito-Lay announcement of product changes, “Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola have made strategic moves to better position themselves in the market," Packaged Facts noted.

A multinational team of scientists who tested the effects of daily supplementation with a specific probiotic on 100 people found that Bifidobacterium lactis HN019 reduced the transit time of food through the intestines in healthy individuals by as much as 33 percent. The participants, whose mean age was 44, received either high or low doses or B. lactis HN019, or a placebo, for 14 days. The researchers said that both the low and high dose groups experienced improvements in nausea, vomiting, regurgitation, abdominal pain, flatulence, constipation and diarrhea. The researchers said that reducing gut transit time could over a long period of time significantly reduce the risk of various colorectal problems, including cancer.

Peoples’ perceptions of the healthfulness of food items varies with the name of the food, a University of South Carolina study among 520 participants has found. Dieters are especially vulnerable to being duped by food names that suggest “healthy,” compared to non-dieters. In the study, food items with healthy names such as “salad” were rated healthier than identical food items with less healthy names such as “pasta,” a phenomenon researchers referred to as “naming traps.” Non-dieters did not make such distinctions in their ratings. Dieters given a choice between the same candy labeled “fruit chew” and “candy chew,” for example, perceived the candy named fruit chew as more healthful. Researchers recommended that dieters should pay attention to nutritional information on food products and menus and ignore food names.

Organic certifier Quality Assurance International and the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) have developed a gluten-free certification program for food manufacturers who are marketing gluten-free products. The certification is science-based and verified through inspections and product testing, the two organizations said, and leads to the issuance of a triple-verified gluten-free label that “brings transparency and trust to people who need gluten-free foods as part of maintaining their healthy diet.” The certification program involves sensitive testing procedures, stringent auditing and an independent application review process using  feedback from consumers, manufacturers and retailers. Included in the process are product review, onsite inspection, testing to ensure compliance to 10ppm or less and ongoing compliance that features random product testing.

A study by Harvard Medical School researchers has found an association between daytime sleepiness and the ability of the brain to regulate eating. Twelve healthy men and women, ages 19 to 45, underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as they looked at pictures of high-calorie foods, low-calorie foods and control images of plants and rocks. All were also measured on a sleepiness scale. Results showed that greater daytime sleepiness was linked to decreased activation in the prefrontal cortex – a brain region important to inhibitory processing – when participants viewed the pictures of enticing, high-calorie food images. "Given the chronic level of sleep restriction in our society, such relationships could have epidemiologic implications regarding the current increase in obesity in westernized countries," one researcher said.

Older adults experiencing cognitive difficulties might be able to lower the risk of developing dementia that proceeds to Alzheimer’s disease by eating a low-glycemic diet that is also low in saturated fats, U.S. scientists have found. Researchers have known for some time that diet is linked to cognitive ability, but the impact of a specific type of diet on “pathological brain aging” has not been explored. For this study, involving older adults who were either healthy or memory-impaired, 24 participants followed a high-saturated fat/high-simple carbohydrate diet and 25 followed a low-saturated fat/low-simple carbohydrate diet. Findings indicated that “diet may be a powerful environmental factor that modulates Alzheimer disease risk through its effects on central nervous system concentrations of Aβ42, lipoproteins, oxidative stress, and insulin.”

Researchers in the Netherlands and the U.K. who tested two gum arabic blends found that the products were able to reduce appetite and caloric intake for up to three hours. Healthy, normal weight adults were given five- to 40-gram doses of either EmulGold and PreVitae. They found that energy consumption was reduced by as much as 200 kcal, and the participants did not compensate by eating more at later meals. The researchers suggested this technique would probably not help with weight loss, but would help prevent gaining additional pounds “in a dietary approach to control body weight development.”

Nestlé announced that scientists from its research center in Switzerland will work with colleagues at King’s College London on a six-month project examining the interactions between genes and food ingredients, and how they can affect human health. Scientists will look at ways genes and their encoded proteins determine important bodily functions, including food metabolism, response to the environment and detoxification. Especially important is gaining knowledge of how changes to gene regulation from diet and exercise could impact human health. The partnership is the result of an Interchange Award given to King’s College by the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The Robert Koch Institutes and the German government have rescinded earlier recommendations that people in the northern areas of Germany refrain from eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce because of the outbreak of the rare O104:H4 strain of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). They  concluded that tainted bean sprouts grown on an organic farm in Northern Germany were the probable source of the deadly bacteria.They recommended  that, in addition to practicing good hygiene, people should not eat raw sprouts and should dispose of any sprouts in stock along with any food items that might have come in contact with the sprouts. The new advisory is the result of a continually declining number of hospital emergency room admissions related to the EHEC outbreak.

Dutch food and beverage ingredients company Royal DSM announced that it has closed a joint venture agreement with privately-held biotechnology company Yixing QianCheng Bio-Engineering Co Ltd for QianCheng’s food enzyme activities. The JV creates a new company DSM (Jiangsu) Biotechnology Co. Ltd. DSM says the global market for enzymes amounts to € 2 billion and is growing by 6-8 percent per year. The Chinese market for food enzymes is one of the world’s largest and is experiencing growth rates far above the global average. DSM is the majority shareholder in the joint venture with 85 percent of the shares. Yixing QianCheng Bio-Engineering Co Ltd will own the remaining 15 percent.

An extremely low-calorie diet reversed Type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes in a clinical trial conducted in the U.K. All eleven people who participated experienced diminished symptoms of the disease –  a chronic condition caused by excessive glucose in the blood – by limiting their food intake to 600 calories a day for eight weeks. Their diet during the trial consisted of liquid diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables. Pre-breakfast blood sugar levels were normal after one week; eventually the pancreas recovered the ability to produce insulin and post-meal blood sugar levels improved. After two months, the volunteers returned to a normal diet. In a three-month follow-up of ten participants, seven were still free of diabetes.

Researchers in Denmark could not find a link between greater consumption of whole grains and specific whole grain foods and the risk of prostate cancer. The prospective study looked at data from 26,691 middle-aged men (50 to 64 years old) who provided information about their diets and various risk factors associated with prostate cancer. Over 12 years of follow-up study, 1,081 prostate cancer cases occurred. But there was no statistical association found between prostate cancer risk and eating whole grains generally, or eating specific whole grain products such as rye bread and oatmeal, with the risk of prostate cancer.

Overweight and obese people who consume a high-fat diet are at risk for damage to the cells in the brain that control body weight, researchers at the University of Washington have found in an animal study. The researchers fed groups of six to 10 rats and mice a high-fat diet for one day to eight months in an effort to determine the short- and long-term effects. Detailed analyses on the animals' brains found that the animals fed the high-fat diet gained weight, developed inflammation in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain containing neurons that control body weight, and other brain abnormalities. The authors suggested that neuronal damage resulting from overconsumption of the typical Western diet makes it difficult to achieve sustained weight loss.

A father’s choice of restaurants – fast-food or conventional – has a significant impact on children’s restaurant habits and potential risk of obesity, according to a new U.S. study. The original purpose of the 15-month study was to determine whether the choice of either fast-food or full-service restaurants was associated with childhood obesity. But children were also asked to record what they ate and whether it was at home or out. Because the children also recorded the names of restaurants, it was easy to tell whether they were full-service or fast-food places. The researchers said they were surprised to find that it was the father's time spent at fast-food restaurants – not the mother's time spent there – that was associated with kids' time spent in a fast-food place.

U.S. scientists working in a mouse model of colorectal cancer found that the blood levels of certain B vitamins in pregnant mice affected the number and aggressiveness of cancerous tumors in their offspring. The researchers fed groups of mothers diets containing supplemental, adequate or mildly deficient quantities of vitamins B2, B6, B12 and folate. The offspring of mothers whose diet was supplemented with vitamin B had the fewest intestinal tumors. The number of tumors was similar in offspring of deficient and adequate mothers. But 54 percent of tumors in the vitamin B-deficient offspring were advanced and very aggressive, compared to only 18 percent in the offspring of vitamin B-adequate mothers. The differences were apparently due to vitamin B-related modifications of DNA passed on to the offspring.

Scientists at the Baylor Research Institute have found encouraging evidence that a tree-derived substance used as an anti-inflammatory treatment in traditional Indian medicine seems to inhibit growth of colorectal and possibly other forms of cancer. The researchers studied the impact of an extract of Boswellia serrata resin on colorectal cancer, finding that it induces DNA demethylation, which in turn prevents aberrant cell division by reactivating the expression of genes that control cancer growth. The research team is also studying the effect of Boswellia resin on gastric, pancreatic and liver cancers

Scientists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that one of the primary phytochemicals in broccoli, cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables selectively targets and kills prostate cancer cells without harming normal prostate cells. Sulforaphone has been known for some time to play a role in cancer prevention. Its new-found role in destroying cancer cells apparently is apparently due to its ability to inhibit histone deacetylase, or HDAC enzymes. "These findings regarding the relative safety of sulforaphane to normal tissues have significant clinical relevance as the use of sulforaphane moves towards use in human clinical trials," the researchers wrote.

A study by market researcher The NPD Group has found that a majority of older American consumers (over age 50) do not expect to pay a premium for healthy restaurant foods. Seventy percent of these adults who were asked if they would pay more for healthier restaurant foods said no. Twenty-five 25 percent said they’d pay somewhat more; only five percent said they would pay more. The picture was different for younger people, however. Forty-four percent of younger adults (age 18 to 24) indicated they would not pay more for healthy food, while 41 percent said they would pay more. A key conclusion from the study: "Pricing of the healthy options needs to be consistent with pricing of other choices on the menu," said NPD restaurant industry analyst Bonnie Riggs.

U.S. researchers looking for a way to ward off muscle wasting that results from illness and aging have discovered that a compound found naturally in apple peels protects against atrophy and causes normal muscles to grow. When the compound, ursolic acid, was added to the diet of fasting mice, their muscles resisted the wasting effect of the minimal diet. When ursolic acid was given to normal mice, their muscles grew. In addition, mice given ursolic acid became leaner and had lower blood levels of glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. The researchers traced the effect to enhanced insulin signaling in muscle and to corrections in the gene signatures linked to atrophy.