Perspective: Achieving Sustainable Healthy Diets Through Formulation and Processing of Foods.

Food processing and food (re)formulation can contribute to achieving sustainable healthy diets. Distinct from product formulation, the main purpose of food processing is to provide a stable and resilient supply of safe, shelf-stable, and affordable foods. Although efforts at reformulating processed foods have focused on removing excess added fat, sugar, and salt, product formulation can also take the form of voluntary fortification with protein, fiber, and micronutrients to improve dietary nutrient density and address population health needs.

Market-Driven Food Fortification to Address Dietary Needs.

The global economic and health-related burden of micronutrient deficiency is very large. Reducing these deficiencies is one of the main objectives of the Global Nutrition Targets 2025 of the WHO. To address this form of malnutrition, the WHO/FAO has defined fortification as one of the possible public health interventions, and voluntary fortification is one of the possible fortification approaches.

Integrating nutrition science and consumer behaviour into future food policy.

The session 'Advancing risk assessment science - Nutrition' at EFSA's third Scientific Conference 'Science, Food and Society' aimed to foster the ongoing debate on the extent to which single nutrients, whole foods and overall diets may impact human health in wealthy populations, and to explore how societal and technological developments could affect food choices and diets in the future. The overarching goal of the session was to discuss how dietary guidelines could evolve to account for the switch from single nutrient deficiencies to diseases of malnutrition in all its forms as the predominant public health concern in developed countries. Speakers addressed the contribution of single nutrients to the prevalence of chronic metabolic diseases, discussed the need to move towards diets focusing on whole foods and overall eating patterns, provided insides on food innovation and consumer behaviour and stressed the need for multidisciplinary approaches to face these challenges.

Novel public-private partnerships to address the double burden of malnutrition.

Public-private partnerships are an effective way to address the global double burden of malnutrition. While public-private partnerships operate in multiple forms, their leadership usually falls to governments, public health agencies, or nongovernmental organizations, with the private sector taking a subordinate role. The rapid ascent of social media and mass communications worldwide has provided a disruptive technology for new nutrition intervention programs.

Sustainable clinical research, health economic aspects and medical marketing: drivers of product innovation.

Marketing-driven innovation in the field of pediatric nutrition, in particular in the infant formula segment is not sustainable. New benefits of products must be scientifically proven and safety and efficacy of new formulae established in clinical trials. The scientific innovation process of three infant formulae is described.

Supplementation with 200 mg/day docosahexaenoic acid from mid-pregnancy through lactation improves the docosahexaenoic acid status of mothers with a habitually low fish intake and of their infants.

Background/aims: The supply of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6omega-3), important for fetal/infant neurodevelopment, depends on the maternal fatty acid (FA) status, which may be marginal in central Europe. Therefore, we investigated the effect of a daily vitamin/mineral supplement with and without 200 mg DHA from mid-pregnancy through lactation on the DHA concentrations in maternal and infant red blood cell phospholipids (RBC%), and in breast milk FA (%).

Methods: At 21 weeks' gestation, 144 women were enrolled into a randomised, double-blind clinical trial receiving daily: (1) a basic vitamin-mineral supplement (Vit/Min group), (2) Vit/Min plus 4.