Use of Fecal Slurry Cultures to Study In Vitro Effects of Bacteriocins on the Gut Bacterial Populations of Infants.

Bacteriocins are antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria to compete with other bacteria for nutrients and ecological niches. The antimicrobial effect of these peptides on the bacterial populations in the gut is likely dynamic as the survival of the microbes in this environment depends on both competition and cooperation. In this study, we evaluated four different bacteriocins from lactic acid bacteria (LAB): nisin, enterocin A (EntA), enterocin K1 (EntK1), and garvicin ML (GarML), which have different inhibition spectra and physicochemical properties.

Identifying labelling and marketing advantages of nutrients in minced beef meat: A case study.

In 2006, the European Commission approved nutrition and health claim regulations of foods to stimulate healthier choices. To document how commercial, minced beef meat complied with regulations, meat samples from 72 carcasses were analysed. These samples were a source of niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), phosphorus and iron (cow meat only), and a rich source of protein, monounsaturated fat, vitamin B12 and zinc.

Consumers in a Sustainable Food Supply Chain (COSUS): Understanding Consumer Behavior to Encourage Food Waste Reduction.

Consumers are directly and indirectly responsible for a significant fraction of food waste which, for a large part, could be avoided if they were willing to accept food that is suboptimal, i.e., food that deviates in sensory characteristics (odd shape, discoloration), or that has a best-before date which is approaching or has passed, but that is still perfectly fine to eat.

Effects of dietary beef, pork, chicken and salmon on intestinal carcinogenesis in A/J Min/+ mice.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified red meat as "probably carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2A). In mechanistic studies exploring the link between intake of red meat and CRC, heme iron, the pigment of red meat, is proposed to play a central role as a catalyzer of luminal lipid peroxidation and cytotoxicity. In the present work, the novel A/J Min/+ mouse was used to investigate the effects of dietary beef, pork, chicken, or salmon (40% muscle food (dry weight) and 60% powder diet) on Apc-driven intestinal carcinogenesis, from week 3-13 of age.

Are school meals a viable and sustainable tool to improve the healthiness and sustainability of children´s diet and food consumption? A cross-national comparative perspective.

There is little agreement among governments, institutions, scientists and food activists as to how to best tackle the challenging issues of health and sustainability in the food sector. This essay discusses the potential of school meals as a platform to promote healthy and sustainable food behavior. School meal programs are of particular interest for improving public diet because they reach children at a population scale across socio-economic classes and for over a decade of their lives, and because food habits of children are more malleable than those of adults.

The Potential of Class II Bacteriocins to Modify Gut Microbiota to Improve Host Health.

Production of bacteriocins is a potential probiotic feature of many lactic acid bacteria (LAB) as it can help prevent the growth of pathogens in gut environments. However, knowledge on bacteriocin producers in situ and their function in the gut of healthy animals is still limited. In this study, we investigated five bacteriocin-producing strains of LAB and their isogenic non-producing mutants for probiotic values.

Diet and Physical Activity Apps: Perceived Effectiveness by App Users.

Background: Diet and physical activity apps are two types of health apps that aim to promote healthy eating and energy expenditure through monitoring of dietary intake and physical activity. No clear evidence showing the effectiveness of using these apps to promote healthy eating and physical activity has been previously reported.

Objective: This study aimed to identify how diet and physical activity (PA) apps affected their users.

Compositional Factors that Influence Lipid Peroxidation in Beef Juice and Standard Sausages.

In order to identify how different additives influenced lipid peroxidation formation, a sausage only using beef juice as pigment source and a standard beef-pork meat sausage were studied. The effects of different additives, including fish oil, myoglobin, nitrite, clove extract, and calcium sources on oxidation and sensory properties were examined. Both sausage systems were stored in 3 different manners prior to testing: (1) frozen immediately at -80 °C; (2) chilled stored for 2.

Snacks With Nutrition Labels: Tastiness Perception, Healthiness Perception, and Willingness to Pay by Norwegian Adolescents.

Objective: Consumers tend to have the perception that healthy equals less tasty. This study aimed to identify whether information provided by the Keyhole symbol, a widely used front-of-package symbol in Nordic countries to indicate nutritional content, and percent daily values (%DVs) affect Norwegian adolescents' perception of the healthiness of snacks and their intention to buy them.

Design: Two tasks were used to evaluate adolescents' perception of snacks with the Keyhole symbol: with %DVs or with no nutrition label.

Lipid oxidation in minced beef meat with added Krebs cycle substrates to stabilise colour.

Krebs cycle substrates (KCS) can stabilise the colour of packaged meat by oxygen reduction. This study tested whether this reduction releases reactive oxygen species that may lead to lipid oxidation in minced meat under two different storage conditions. KCS combinations of succinate and glutamate increased peroxide forming potential (PFP, 1.

Resistant starch diet induces change in the swine microbiome and a predominance of beneficial bacterial populations.

Background: Dietary fibers contribute to health and physiology primarily via the fermentative actions of the host's gut microbiome. Physicochemical properties such as solubility, fermentability, viscosity, and gel-forming ability differ among fiber types and are known to affect metabolism. However, few studies have focused on how they influence the gut microbiome and how these interactions influence host health.

Effects of hemin and nitrite on intestinal tumorigenesis in the A/J Min/+ mouse model.

Red and processed meats are considered risk factors for colorectal cancer (CRC); however, the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. One cause for the potential link between CRC and meat is the heme iron in red meat. Two pathways by which heme and CRC promotion may be linked have been suggested: fat peroxidation and N-nitrosation.

Getting Norway to eat healthier: what are the opportunities?

Aim: Increased food consumption and the related problem of obesity have spurred initiatives to motivate consumers to eat healthier. Some strategies have shown positive but only short-term effects, as consumers or other stakeholders do not accept them sufficiently in the long term. The aim of this study was to investigate opportunities for healthier eating in Norway according to both consumers and other stakeholders.

Effects of pellet diameter during and after lactation on feed intake of piglets pre- and postweaning.

Effects of 2 pellet diameters for piglets pre- and postweaning on feed intake, BW, and feed-related behavior were studied in 3 experiments. In Exp. 1, 19 litters were provided with pellets of 2 and 12 mm in diameter in a choice-feeding setup from d 4 of lactation onward.

The role of red and processed meat in colorectal cancer development: a perspective.

This paper is based on a workshop held in Oslo, Norway in November 2013, in which experts discussed how to reach consensus on the healthiness of red and processed meat. Recent nutritional recommendations include reducing intake of red and processed meat to reduce cancer risk, in particular colorectal cancer (CRC). Epidemiological and mechanistic data on associations between red and processed meat intake and CRC are inconsistent and underlying mechanisms are unclear.

Systems integrity in health and aging - an animal model approach.

Human lifespan is positively correlated with childhood intelligence, as measured by psychometric (IQ) tests. The strength of this correlation is similar to the negative effect that smoking has on the life course. This result suggests that people who perform well on psychometric tests in childhood may remain healthier and live longer.

Potential applications of gut microbiota to control human physiology.

The microorganisms living in our gut have been a black box to us for a long time. However, with the recent advances in high throughput DNA sequencing technologies, it is now possible to assess virtually all microorganisms in our gut including non-culturable ones. With the use of powerful bioinformatics tools to deal with multivariate analyses of huge amounts of data from metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metabolomics, we now start to gain some important insights into these tiny gut inhabitants.

Working and reference memory of pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) in a holeboard spatial discrimination task: the influence of environmental enrichment.

Interest in cognitive research in pigs is increasing, but little is known about the impact of environmental conditions on pigs' cognitive capabilities. The present study investigated the effect of environmental enrichment on cognitive performance of pigs in a holeboard spatial task, in which they had to discriminate four baited buckets out of 16. Pigs (n = 32) were either housed in stimulus-poor, barren pens, or in larger pens enriched with rooting substrates.

Perinatal flavour learning and adaptation to being weaned: all the pig needs is smell.

Perinatal flavour learning through the maternal diet is known to enhance flavour preference and acceptance of flavoured food in many species, yet still little is known about the mechanism underlying perinatal flavour learning. Previously we found positive effects of perinatal flavour learning on food intake, growth and behaviour of piglets postweaning, but no increased preference for the flavour. This suggests that flavour learning in pigs works through a reduction of weaning stress by the presence of the familiar flavour instead.

Effects of environmental enrichment and loose housing of lactating sows on piglet performance before and after weaning.

We investigated effects of loose housing of the sow during lactation and enrichment of the pen pre- and postweaning on performance of newly weaned piglets. Before weaning, piglets (n = 320) were housed in an enriched (straw, wood shavings, peat, and branches) or barren pen with a confined or loose-housed sow (n = 32). Loose-housed sows and their piglets could eat together from a family feeder, whereas confined sows and piglets had separate feeding troughs.

Maternal presence and environmental enrichment affect food neophobia of piglets.

Young omnivores show food neophobia in order to avoid the potential harmful effects of ingesting unfamiliar food items. We investigated whether the presence of the mother and an enriched rearing environment would reduce food neophobia in piglets. A mother may provide information on suitable food types to include in the diet, whereas an enriched environment may stimulate behavioural development and reduce reactivity towards novel stimuli (including food).

Prenatal flavor exposure affects growth, health and behavior of newly weaned piglets.

Young animals can learn about flavors from the maternal diet that appear in the amniotic fluid and mother's milk, which may reduce neophobia for similarly flavored food types at weaning. Flavor learning may be beneficial for piglets, which after the rather abrupt weaning in pig husbandry frequently show a period of anorexia, reduced health, and stress-induced behaviors. We investigated the effects of pre- and postnatal flavor exposure through the maternal diet on acceptance of a similarly flavored food and subsequent growth, health and behavior of newly weaned piglets.

Prenatal flavor exposure affects flavor recognition and stress-related behavior of piglets.

Exposure to flavors in the amniotic fluid and mother's milk derived from the maternal diet has been shown to modulate food preferences and neophobia of young animals of several species. Aim of the experiment was to study the effects of pre- and postnatal flavor exposure on behavior of piglets during (re)exposure to this flavor. Furthermore, we investigated whether varying stress levels, caused by different test settings, affected behavior of animals during (re)exposure.