Home-grown fast food drink really is a fat lot of good
Wednesday November 29 2006
The old adage of "a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips" could be shot to pieces, thanks to the scientific breakthrough at University College Dublin.
A research team, led by Professor Brian McKenna and Dr Jim Lyng of the Agriculture and Food Science Centre, has developed a new soft drink described as a "meal pal" and designed to complement a fast-food meal.
The drink contains bio-active compounds that block fat uptake, offering a healthier alternative to the fizzy drinks that normally accompany high-fat, high-cholesterol meals.
It works by using natural ingredients such as oats and Chinese Oolong tea which can help to assimilate fat and cholesterol in food and prevent them being metabolised in the body, said Dr Jorge Oliviera of UCC who helped develop it.
The team also made use of the Japanese technique of "kansei engineering", a new method designed to evaluate consumers' emotional response to food, instead of just their rational response, and designed its composition accordingly.
But how does it taste? Blind trials with consumer panels indicate that "the taste of the new drinks was less appreciated than the typical soft drink, implying that the health benefits would play an essential role in the marketing strategy".
The new drink is one of a number of breakthroughs in Irish food research highlighted in the new publication 'Quality Food Founded on Science' which was launched by Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan yesterday.
Ms Coughlan also revealed details of the record €31m that has just been awarded to 57 new Irish research projects under the department's Food Institutional Research Measure (FIRM).
This includes a bid to find an alternative to overused antibiotics, through a new study of proteins from hen eggs that can kill bacteria.
Researchers at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin are studying whether it might be possible to use these novel proteins to fight common infections which have become resistant to most antibiotics.
Almost €1m is being devoted to developing functional health-boosting foods from the waste products of fruit, vegetables and fish processing.
Other successful research projects will look at how to identify and use food components that can boost heart health, incorporate Vitamin D to prevent disease, improve children's diets and develop rapid tests for harmful bugs.
- Aideen Sheehan
