Thanks to a generous donation from Dr. Bill Hildebolt, an alumnus of the Department of Food Science and Technology, a group of students has formed with the goal of training other students in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences in vital communications skills. The group, called [Citation Needed], is composed of students, faculty, and staff from the departments of Food Science and Technology and Agricultural Communications, Education, and Leadership. This partnership will benefit members of both departments by giving their students an opportunity to learn how to better communicate science to the general public. The group will host a series of events including training sessions and panel discussions surrounding various media for communicating science. The group will have a culminating event in April 2016 with a keynote speaker (TBD) and including a showcase from the students in CFAES. The showcase will allow students to present either a social media campaign, youtube video, or short talk surrounding a myth or controversial issue from the media. The top student in each category will be recognized and an overall winner determined. All content developed through this group will be available for access online through our website: go.osu.edu/citation-needed.

I had the opportunity on March 4-6 to attend the Mid-America Food Processors Association (MAFPA) Meeting at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

Tomato cutting showing different experimental varieties of processing tomatoes.

After checking into my hotel room I wandered over to the Nelson Hall of Food Science where I got a tour of the facilities and mingled with the food processors. We got to see a myriad of tomatoes as part of a trial at Ohio State in a collaboration of Dr. David Francis, a plant breeder and geneticist in the Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, and the Food Industries Center in the Department of Food Science and Technology, lead by pilot plant supervisor Steven Simmons. The project explored different tomato varieties, bred by Dr. Francis, and how they stood up to processing as juice, whole peeled tomatoes and tomato dices. I must say, the smell of a couple dozen types of tomatoes reminded me of my time at UC Davis working on the T4 tomato variety trial, spending all week testing pH, titratable acidity, Bostwick viscosity, color and Brix of hundreds of tomatoes. While I enjoyed my time working on that project, I will never look at processed tomatoes the same way again.

The second day of the meeting involved many speakers covering a wide variety of topics relevant to the food processing industry. First, Dr. Brian Farakas, department chair at the Purdue Department of Food Science, talked to us about partnerships between industry and academia. He pointed out what defines a good partnership including common interests and goals, being mutually beneficial, having agreed upon expectations, having good communication and having a champion who has a real interest in the project. He pointed out that a good partnership is not defined as fun, which may be something students in particular often overlook. Next we heard from Wallace Tyner about the impact of energy and emissions on the environment and learned what would happen to the global climate if energy consumption continues as it has. This was followed by Doug Adams who presented the impacts of the “Cans Get You Cooking Campaign.” We learned that February is National Canned Food Month and that the average person has about 100 meals per year that contain come component of canned food. This was followed by Brian Hendrickson, a consultant who updated us on the impacts of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) on the processed food industry. The last speaker was Marland Buckner, who gave us a perspective on the impact of the Farm Bill.

The last part of the program was both a beer and wine tasting. The beer tasting was led by Chris Johnson, owner and head brewer at People’s Brewery in Layfayette, IN. Chris gave us a little insight into the craft brewing industry and how it has grown recently. We also got a little history on the craft brewing industry in Indiana before tasting three beers from the brewery. This was followed by a wine tasting led by Dr. Christian Butzke, professor of enology at Purdue. We learned about the growth of the wine industry in Indiana and the US as a whole. This was followed by a tasting of three wines.

Beer tasting from People’s Brewery. (l-r) Ol’ Tavern Lager, Flying Duchess IPA, and Mr. Brown.

Wine tasting led by Dr. Butzke. (l-r) Midwestern Concord, New Zealand Savignon Blanc, and Indiana Traminette.

Vani Hari aka The Food Babe

In the middle of January 2015 I had the privilege of working with some of my food science colleagues in the composition of an open letter to The Food Babe, Vani Hari. Our letter was written with the goal of encouraging Hari and her so-called “Food Babe Army” to take a closer look at some of the values they are touting. Shockingly, Hari responded! While the response was predictable and ignored much of the content of our letter, we got the dialogue started, which was the goal! A like-minded professor at the University of Florida took it upon himself to add some of his own comments to Hari’s response. Dr. Folta’s comments, while a bit more forceful than our original letter, the sentiment echoed our own thoughts about the general lack of supporting evidence which is typical of the claims presented throughout the Food Babe network. This deconstruction of Hari’s response was followed up by a story on the Tellus News Digest in which Dr. Folta and our own group gave more of the reasoning behind our thoughts and motivations in taking on this challenge. Our group was also interviewed for the Sense About Science USA website, which promotes communication of science and “the importance of evidence and transparency” in scientific research.

I can’t believe the amount of attention we have gotten from this letter. I think it is wonderful because it shows that people really do care about this issue. We as scientists need to take the time and effort to clearly communicate the importance of our own research as well as that of our peers. We are missing a huge opportunity to teach and to learn. I cannot wait to continue working with these people as well as the scientific community as a whole to help the public really understand what is in their food and not be afraid of new technology just because nobody has taken the time to explain it to them. Keep an eye out for more posts from me and my colleagues  addressing some of the more controversial issues in food science and technology!

Aside from the energy that goes into creating frozen foods, the amount of packaging can also be a concern for eco-friendly consumers. Well a relatively new company is removing that concern from some of our favorite frozen food products like ice cream and frozen yogurt! Founded in 2012, the Cambridge, MA-based WikiFoods, Inc. has developed a novel packaging technique for foods that is edible, eliminating the waste of traditional packages.

The products, collectively called “WikiPearls,” consist of a core made of the food product covered in a polysaccharide-based skin which is less permeable to water and oxygen than other edible food coatings.  The WikiPearl™ product line includes yogurt, ice cream, cheese and fruits and vegetables currently. Though the ultimate goal is to eliminate food packaging waste completely by selling the pearls in bulk, much like grains and granola in a grocery store now, the packaging expectations of consumers are still very much a point of concern. This has been overcome by the utilization of 100% biodegradable secondary packaging. Currently Stonyfield is taking advantage of this new technology with their Frozen Yogurt Pearls. Not only does this product reduce the environmental impact, it provides new opportunities for product developers to create interesting flavor and texture combinations. As we approach an era where green is the new black, it is important for food manufacturers to consider these and other novel techniques for reducing their environmental impact.

OSU College Bowl Team (l-r) Dr. John Litchfield (advisor), Jacob Farr, Olivia Geoghegan, John Frelka, Matt Teegarden, Paul Park, and Dr. Mary Kay Pohlschneider (advisor)

I am so proud of my team who came home from the IFT Annual Meeting and Food Expo as national runners-up in the College Bowl competition. We fought hard winning our first two preliminary rounds against the University of Minnesota and Texas A&M. We went on to lose to Penn State in our third round and then beat NC State to play Penn State again. The final round was a nail-biter with Penn State winning by a nose. We played our hardest and most of the team will begin practicing again in the Fall. We will be aiming for the prize again and hope we can bring home the title in the new year of competition.

New data presented at the Experimental Biology conference in San Diego showed that consumers of frozen prepared meals  had lower calorie intakes and better Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score than consumers of fast food. The research, sponsored by Nestle (makers of the Lean Cuisine and Stouffers brands), reiterates the significant role frozen foods can play in the American diet. More details of the study can be found summarized here.

Over the weekend the Ohio State College Bowl team traveled down south to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. There we competed against the other schools in our region to see who would represent the Midwest Area in the National College Bowl competition at the IFT Annual Meeting in New Orleans coming up in June. The other teams competing were University of Tennessee, Purdue University and University of Illinois. Our team won the first two rounds against UT and Purdue. Our third round was a rematch with UT, who beat us in a round of rough questions leading into the final round in this double elimination bracket. We ultimately prevailed beating UT in the final round.

The team was captained by myself and consisted of Matt Teegarden, Jacob Farr, Olivia Geoghegan, Hilary Goetz, Ron Bangcuyo, Alex Pierce, Greg Sigurdson, Ty Thammakulkajang, Mei-Ling Shotts and Paul Park.  The team is advised by Mary Kay Pohlschneider and John Litchfield.

College bowl team members Olivia, myself, Matt and Jacob during competition at UT.

On Wednesday, April 2 the Ohio State College Bowl team got a chance to take on a team composed of Food Science faculty members. The team used this as a chance to warm up prior to the Midwest regional competition which is coming up on April 12 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The faculty team was led by Dr. John Litchfield, one of our team’s advisors. The other team members were Drs. Dennis Helman, Chris Simons and Brian Waters. The faculty put up a good fight but were ultimately taken down by our well-practiced team winning 2 out of 3 rounds. The students on the team are led by myself as the captain. We hope that we perform as well as we did in this warm up at the regional competition.

Faculty team (l to r) Drs. Heldman, Litchfield, Waters and Simons take on students (l to r) Olivia, Paul, Ron and Jacob. Mary Kay Pohlschneider acted as moderator.