September / October, 2004

Functional Foods, Health and the Immune System

This article is excerpted from the "Nutritional Immunology"
story in the summer 2004 issue of Futures,
published by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station at
Michigan State University.

Functional foods, nutraceuticals, healthy foods and wellness foods – they are all names for the same thing: a food or food ingredient that provides a health benefit beyond basic nutrition; in other words, a food that has medicinal effects. While popular lore has long touted the healthy effects of certain herbs, fruits and vegetables, it wasn’t until 1997 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded the first food-specific health claim. It was to the Quaker Oats Company for a claim relating consumption of oat bran to reduced risk of coronary heart disease.

Functional food research is one facet of the nutritional immunology program at MSU. Norm Hord and Kate Claycombe’s work with flavonoids is functional food research, as is Jim Pestka’s work with fish oil. As the food and human nutrition scientists use microbiology to understand and map out the way the compounds interact with the body, biosystems and agricultural engineering scientists help optimize the processing of the compounds for production. This is where Kirk Dolan comes in. Though not a member of the nutritional immunology group, Dolan studies ways to transfer the information the nutritional immunology scientists discover into products that can be sold commercially.

An MAES food engineering researcher, Dolan is working with Maurice Bennink, MAES nutrition researcher, to develop a processing method for the commercialization of functional food components once they have been identified.

“The U.S. market for functional foods was $19.6 billion in 1999 and is expected to triple by 2010,” Dolan said. “Functional foods make up about 10 percent of the total food market. Nearly two-thirds of grocery shoppers report that their purchase decisions are driven by their desire to either reduce risk for or manage a specific health condition. Many of the larger food companies have established functional food divisions.”

Dolan said Michigan is in a unique strategic position to benefit from this growing market. The state is second only to California in the diversity of agricultural crops grown, and about half the population of the United States and Canada is within 500 miles of the state. This provides convenient access to markets.

“We want to identify the health-promoting compounds in Michigan crops,” Dolan said. “Since Michigan grows so many fruits and vegetables, we had a number of crops to choose from.”

Though blueberries, grapes, cucumbers, green peppers, radishes, turnips, carrots, apples, onions and mint are all crops with potential health benefits, the scientists are initially focusing on grapes, blueberries and onions. Michigan ranks in the nation’s top 10 for production of these three crops. What they have in common is the highest levels of phenolic compounds, a type of flavonoid. During processing of these crops, large quantities of seconds and culled and inedible material, such as grape skins, are thrown away as waste. This provides Dolan with a large supply of free raw material.

“These foods have been shown to have beneficial effects, so we’re trying to develop and optimize processes to produce commercial products, whether they are liquids or powders,” Dolan said. “For example, we’re extracting, filtering and evaporating blueberries and grapes to get a liquid concentrate. From there, the concentrate can be sold as-is as a base or ingredient for blueberry syrup, blueberry or grape toppings, or fruit fillings.

Because all the raw materials for the products are waste, the only costs involved are processing costs. As an engineer, Dolan sees himself at the end of the functional food production process, figuring out how to make the product in large volume in a cost-effective way.

“It’s to everyone’s benefit to spend the money now, before large-scale production is launched, to determine the best and most efficient production techniques, rather than trying to fix a problem at the plant level,” he said. “My job is to transfer the information so it’s equipment independent. I want to boil it all down and give someone a cost in dollars per milligram of beneficial compound. The industry is very excited about this. It’s a way to add value to Michigan crops and take advantage of existing processing techniques.”

Jamie DePolo

Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering
Michigan State University
A.W. Farrall Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824-1323
(517) 355-4720

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September 30, 2004