Food Chemistry and Human Nutrition

Department of Food Safety and Food Quality< Faculty of Bioscience Engineering

Personnel

• John Van Camp
• Bruno De Meulenaer
• Patrick Kolsteren
• 15 to 20 PhD students (resident or sandwich type

Activities

All activities in our unit are related to the nutritional value and the chemical safety of food products, and their relationship to human health. We have interest in analysing the content and bioactivity of new bioactive compounds and contaminants in food products. We have access to facilities to quantify bioactive components in foods (HPLC, GC, ELISA), as well as to appropriate techniques to measure in vitro bioactivity of these components (e.g. cell cultures). We also have a strong interest in food epidemiology and development of risk-benefit models in human nutrition. There is a close collaboration with the other laboratories within the department, as well as with more (bio)medical groups like the Child Health and Nutrition Unit in the Tropical Institute of Medicine, Antwerp, and the Department of Public health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent.

Our unit participates in courses of food chemistry, human nutrition, functional foods, food and nutrition epidemiology, nutrition disorders, and nutrition planning, for Bachelor and Master students in Bio-Science Engineering, as well as for students in the international courses Rural Development and Nutrition, and Food Technology.

The following research topics are covered :

1) measuring the nutritional value and chemical safety of food products: e.g. vitamins, trace elements, phytochemicals, mycotoxins
2) evaluating the chemical safety of food products: mycotoxins, furan, acrylamide, PCB’s, residues packaging materials
3) improving the bioavailability and the density of nutrients in foods: iron, zink, antinutritional factors (phytates, tannins)
4) evaluating new emerging bio-active components in foods: ACE-inhibitory peptides derived from food proteins, nutritional minor components derived from the milk fat globule membrane, antioxidative components (phenolic acids, polyphenols) in vegetable foods
5) evaluating food consumption and risk-benefit models in human nutrition (fish consumption, biological agriculture)

Contact

• Websites
  • http://www.nutriFOODchem.ugent.be
• email:
  • john.vancamp@UGent.be
  • bruno.demeulenaer@UGent.be
  • p.kolsteren@itg.be

• tel: +32 9 264 58 69
• fax: +32 9 264 62 15

• Mailing address:
  • Unit Food Chemistry and Human Nutrition, Department Food Safety and Food Quality, UGent, Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent, Belgium