Food quality

Food quality covers different aspects of food structure and properties. Understanding these aspects is fundamental when attempting to modulate and produce foods in more sustainable ways.

This research area aims to understand how raw materials, food processing and storage affect food quality including color, sensory properties and flavour release, functional properties, shelf-life as well as digestibility and nutritional properties. This includes analysis of the content and quality of micro- (vitamins and minerals) and macro-nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and lipids) as well as protein modifications (by oxidation, Maillard reactions, enzymes and polyphenols), and untargeted molecular profiling for unknown food composition and food authenticity/adulteration.

An example of related research is the project INSITUQUANT which focuses on the underlying mechanisms causing both positive and negative changes of food proteins during industrial processing. Through multivariate analysis it is possible to follow the chemical reactions taking place with the proteins during processing and storage, and get information about several types of chemical reactions at the same time.