The Digest
CSIRO's newsletter for the food, nutrition and health industries.
In this issue, start planning for some great events in 2020 and hear about how CSIRO is converting food otherwise lost from the supply chain to help boost our population's vegetable intake.
We wish all of our readers a safe and relaxing festive season.
Supplementing vegetable intake with carrot powder
Despite the known health benefits of a vegetable-rich diet, many people all over the world struggle to meet recommended veggie intakes. At the same time, we waste root and tuber vegetables at an alarmingly high rate (up to 60%). Previous research has shown that the effort it takes to prepare vegetables, along with their flavour and texture, are the major factors that discourage people from eating vegetables.
We conducted a clinical trial to determine whether this new carrot powder could effectively supplement a person's vegetable intake compared to a diet of fresh vegetables.
Half of our research participants were instructed to eat two serves of carrot powder per day, and the other half to eat two serves of carotenoid-rich vegetables such as carrots, broccoli and tomatoes, every day for one month.
Both groups showed improved blood levels of key nutrients, but the carrot powder group enjoyed their product a little less than the fresh vegetables group.
While our results show that carrot powder can effectively supplement a person's vegetable intake, we need to determine and test new ways to improve consumer acceptance.
CSIRO Low-Carb Diet: The scientifically proven diet that isn't a fad
Low-carb isn't a new concept. In fact, it's been around for so long that people might have forgotten about it. However, the evidence for low-carb is strong; few diets have undergone this level of rigorous testing and research.
To make it even easier to help people adopt this evidence based eating approach, we are now partnering with food manufacturers and retailers to deliver CSIRO Low-Carb Diet certified meals into the Australian marketplace. If you are interested in more information or to partner in this program, please contact us.
STEM+
CSIRO has a range of funding opportunities available to businesses, one of these is STEM+. STEM+ Business enables SMEs to build on existing successful collaborative projects by providing funding support for the placement of early career researchers from Australia’s research organisations into businesses. The researchers help businesses to develop and implement new ideas with commercial potential. Eligible companies have completed or are currently undertaking a research collaboration.
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