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Caleb Jasper

A Surprise find: Soybean waste can be fish feed - 0 views

  • fish feed. The wastewater from soybean
  • processing can be converted into a nourishing, protein-rich food for farmed Asian sea bass, a team of scientists has discovered.
  • They worked with a local food processing company to rescue hundreds of liters of soybean wastewater, which they discovered was rich in two types of protein-accumulating microbes in particular, known as Acidipropionibacterium and Propioniciclava.
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  • The sea bass that were fed the alternative microbe protein diet did have significantly lower weight to begin with, but that evened out as they grew. And, notably, the group that received the traditional feed diet had greater variability in their weight gain as they grew—whereas those fed the alternative microbe protein diet showed a more even accumulation of weight over the experiment’s course.
  • Meanwhile, the wastewater from other soybean uses goes unused—but according to the recent results, could feasibly tackle both of these sustainability challenges at once. Furthermore it’s not just soybean waste water, the researchers say: several agricultural processes create wastewater side streams that are rich in the combination of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus that’s needed to sustain a growing population of hungry, protein-accumulating bacteria.
  • Microbial community‐based protein from soybean‐processing wastewater as a sustainable alternative fish feed ingredient.
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    Possible more efficient fish feed to reduce waste and benefit the environment as well as the economy.
emmarrogers

The Unexpected Villain in Plant-Based Diets - 2 views

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    Love this topic... but it would be a tough one. Look up "ISEF rules - vertebrate animals" to get an idea of how hard it is to get an vertebrate animal study approved where you are altering a diet in a way that includes feeding something suspected of having issues to animals. It isn't impossible, but it is very difficult. Often, we just shift down to an invertebrate animal. However, in this case, I don't think the variable of processed plant dietary items would transfer as well to non-vertebrate animals. And yet, I could be convinced otherwise if you can show me some other work done that says we might be able to gain worthwhile information from a study like that.
Kylie John

A high-fat diet may fuel anxiety | ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • The study found that in animals, a high-fat diet disrupts resident gut bacteria, alters behavior and, through a complex pathway connecting the gut to the brain, influences brain chemicals in ways that fuel anxiety.
  • "To think that just a high-fat diet could alter expression of these genes in the brain is extraordinary," said Lowry. "The high-fat group essentially had the molecular signature of a high anxiety state in their brain."
Sean Nash

Scientists develop visual tool to help people group foods based on their levels of proc... - 0 views

  • Scientists studying ultra-processed foods have created a new tool for assessing the rewarding and reinforcing properties of foods that make up 58 percent of calories consumed in the United States. The foods have been linked to a wide range of negative health outcomes.
    • Sean Nash
       
      I couldn't locate this imageset and associated tools online, but I am willing to bet they might make it available to us, and the generation of more future research in this area is a key purpose of this work.
  • provides a collection of carefully curated images of minimally processed and ultra-processed foods matched on 26 characteristics, including macronutrients, sodium, dietary fiber, calories, price, and visual characteristics such as a color and portion size
    • Sean Nash
       
      Perhaps we just need to get the full journal article to get the raw materials (images) created and used.
  • The scale has its detractors. "A major criticism of the NOVA scale is that it's difficult to use or that foods are classified differently by different people," said Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, corresponding author and assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. "We found that people with education in nutrition generally agreed on the food classifications, providing some data that it might not be a valid criticism."
    • Sean Nash
       
      See... this is the sort of thing I see as an opportunity. If the scale has detractors or isn't yet perfect, perhaps there is an opening here for a project. Perhaps there is even an opening to create something focused on teens (who I would argue are at most risk for the consumption of ultra-processed foods). This is an interesting area to me, not only behavioral science, but human diet in general.
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  • To develop the picture set, a team of psychologists, neuroscientists, and registered dietitians selected foods to represent either minimally processed or ultra-processed foods.
  • The foods were prepared in a lab, visually represented through professional photography, and controlled for consistency. Researchers also gathered price, food weights, and nutritional information -- calories, macronutrients, sodium, and dietary fiber -- for the food in each image.
  • researchers recruited 67 nutrition professionals and asked them to classify the foods as minimally or ultra-processed
  • "There is very little experimental research on ultra-processed foods, and part of what's been holding us back is better tools for measuring and assessing their effects,"
    • Sean Nash
       
      Another big GREEN flag that this is an area ripe for new and creative approaches!
  • The Virginia Tech team is making the pictures and associated data accessible through the Virginia Tech Data Repository of the Virginia Tech University Libraries. This will allow scientists to test hypotheses in behavioral economic and neuroimaging studies.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This states that the images/research tools WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE (if not already). This is very cool. So, could the already-existing tool be leveraged in a novel way compared to what the researchers used it for, or does this provide somewhat of a template for someone to create a better or more-helpful tool perhaps for teens?
  • Story Source: Materials provided by Virginia Tech. Original written by Leigh Anne Kelley. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
  • Journal Reference: Zach Hutelin, Monica Ahrens, Mary Elizabeth Baugh, Mary E. Oster, Alexandra L. Hanlon, Alexandra G. DiFeliceantonio. Creation and validation of a NOVA scored picture set to evaluate ultra-processed foods.. Appetite, 2024; 198: 107358 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107358
Sean Nash

Picture this: Snapping photos of our food could be good for us - 0 views

  • Research reveals taking pictures of food isn't just content for our social media feeds, but could be the key to improving people's diets
    • Sean Nash
       
      I just have a gut feeling that, over time, if you knew you were going to photograph every meal, you would tend to eat less, eat more colorful things, and eat more varied things... so that it would make a better photograph. Each of those elements might just lead to healthier meals over time. Very interesting. It is sort of like imposing a metacognitive approach to food selection.
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