Food science to fight obesity epidemic

Posted October 25, 2013 15:18:25

Audio: Research focused on making food healthier (ABC Rural)

Australians are eating too much, exercising too little and getting too fat, with more than 60 per cent of the population now overweight or obese.

Scientists are researching ways to make food healthier, allowing people to stay fuller for longer and eat less.

CSIRO scientist Ingrid Appelqvist says they are adopting a new approach that turns the paddock to plate concept upside down.

"What we are asking ourselves is 'what is it that food needs to do with a human to make sure that they remain healthy and they have good wellbeing?' It's called reverse engineering," she said.

"Now when we have defined what food needs to do and how it needs to behave inside somebody's body, we can start to say, 'okay, if that's what is the structure we need to produce from the food so it behaves that way?'

"Then if we have that structure, what are the ingredients that we need to put together? How do we put those ingredients together? And then the question is, how do we get those ingredients? So what should we be growing?"

Dr Appelqvist says research is also looking at how to increase the feeling of fullness people get from eating food, so they eat less.

"There has been a lot of evidence that has shown, for example, increasing certain types of protein in your diet can increase the feeling of fullness."

Topics: food-processing, wheat, agribusiness, science-and-technology, diet-and-nutrition, research-organisations, melbourne-3000