Molecular structuring of foods to feed the gut microbiome

Developing the latest generation of foods requires detailed structural and chemical insights into the molecular scale structuring within a food, as well as the application of novel processing methods. This will allow the creation of novel foods which can be targeted to deliver highly accessible fermentable substrates to the gut microbiota.

Advanced NMR spectroscopy approaches usually reserved for the analysis of pharmaceutical excipients will be applied to design snack foods. Processing technologies developed by the non-academic partner organisation allows the production of food formulations with novel combinations of ingredients which result in unique structuring within the food. The project will aim to investigate the formation of these structures within snack foods using advanced NMR facilities and will explore the potential for these novel food materials to impact on the gut microbiome. Processing technologies, and the use of advanced models of the human gut microbiota coupled with metagenomic and metabolomic approaches to probe the effects on the gut microbiota, will impact on the structuring and availability of carbohydrate substrates to the gut microbiota.