Improving Food Quality and Value

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• Improving Food Quality and Value
• NRI (71.1)
• Damanna Ramkishan Rao
• Nutrition and Food Safety
  Conference
• Baltimore, MD
• March 31, 2005

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Relevance to NRI Mission

• Critical link between the consumers and raw
  agricultural products including global markets.
• Rapidly changing consumer lifestyle is demanding
  convenient, healthful, tasty, safe, and
  affordable food products.
• Currently, U.S. is loosing competitive edge
• In order to meet these demands, this program
  funds basic research and integrated activities to
  generate new knowledge and facilitates its
  translation into food products with improved
  quality and value.

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Relevance to Agency Goals

• This program cuts across 3 strategic goals of the
  
• Agency.
• Goal 1, objective 1.3 Provide science-based
  knowledge and technologies to generate new or
  improved high quality products and processes to
  expand markets for the agricultural sector,
• goal 3, objective 3.1 Reduce the incidence of
  food borne illness, and
• goal 4, objective 4.1 Improving the
  nutritional value of the U.S. food supply by
  enhancing the health promoting properties of the
  food products.

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Priority Area 1 (FY 2005)

• Mechanism of interaction of macromolecules in
  foods and food ingredients (proteins,
  polysaccharides, and lipids in foods) and
  factors influencing the complexation and
  segregation of these macromolecules

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Priority Area 2 (FY 2005)

• Advanced and innovative processing engineering
  and technology that enhances food quality

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Priority area 3 (FY 2005)

• Chemistry and fates of proven bioactive
  compounds in foods and food ingredients during
  processing, storage and distribution.

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NRI (71.1) Improving Food Quality and Value
Research Amounts Funded ( M)

• Increase is 100 from FY 2001 to FY 2005
  (Estimated)
• Total Funding requested/FY was about 30-32 M in
  the past 3 years

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Proposals Funded/Received
30

• FY 2001 21/140
• FY 2002 28/153
• FY 2003 37/125
• FY 2004 33/165

20
18
FUNDED
15
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Average Size of the Grant ( K)

• FY 2001 160
• FY 2002 144
• FY 2003 171
• FY 2004 220

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FY 2005Maximum amount Grants 500,000
(including indirect costs)Duration 3-4 years.
Estimated total support available 6.5 M
Proposals in the Integrated area were invited

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Impact of emulsion on the oxidative stability of
lipid dispersions, E. Decker, U. Mass. (1999-2002)
Objective To determine how physical structure of
emulsion droplet surfaces affect lipid oxidation
Results All the variables studied had
significant influence protein structure was an
important factor.
Impact Antioxidant technologies were developed
to protect lipids (increase shelf-life) and
bioactive components. An IFAFS grant to the
investigator resulted in stable preparation of
w-3 fatty acids The investigator currently has a
grant from NRI to determine the mechanism of
protein action and possible engineering of
proteins to modify physical properties.
Approach Variables used to alter the physical
structure of emulsion droplet surface
included Functional groups, charge, hydrophilic
head size and hydrophobic tail size
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IMPROVING PROCESS EFFICIENCY AND HEAT TRANSFER IN
FOOD FREEZING USING IMPINGEMENT TECHNOLOGYDr. R.
Paul Singh, UCD, GRANT NO 2003-35503-13759
Objective Mechanistic models to predict
flow and heat transfer of the
impingement system using particle imaging
velocimetry (PIV) for reducing freezing time and
maximizing energy efficiency.
PIV system
Impact The information being developed in
this project is targeted to develop new
generation of impingement freezers that are
energy efficient and process foods with superior
quality attributes and better safety.

• Approach
• Fluid dynamics and heat transfer
• Freezing and thawing rates on quality
• Jet type and configuration
• Nozzle design target surface spacing
• Location of exhaust ports
• Induced or imposed cross flow
• Surface motion
• Angle of impingement
• Temperature differences between the jet and the
  impingement surface

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Contacts

• Ram Rao
• rrao_at_csrees.usda.gov
• 202-401-6010
• Hongda Chen
• hchen_at_csrees.usda.gov
• 202-401-6497
• Dionne Toombs
• dtoombs_at_csrees.usda.gov
• 202-401-2138

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• THANK YOU