The emergence of plant-based alternatives as a supermarket category has benefits for sustainability, but the
potential effects on diet and health are poorly understood. With the influx of new food products and processing
technologies, there is a need for research to ensure optimal nutrition. So far, clinical studies on the quality of
new protein sources have largely focused on pure protein ingredients, while digestion and uptake of dietary
proteins is influenced by food formulation, matrix, and processing history. Digestion and quality are almost
always communicated as a population average while recent findings by WUR show significant variability between
healthy adult individuals in ability to digest proteins, and older consumers are known to have lower ability to
digest. This project aims to deliver a better understanding on the impact of food formulation and processing on
protein digestibility and study the interpersonal variation in amino acid uptake.
The PROUD project aims to investigate the effects of the food matrix, formulation and related food processing
and variation in interpersonal digestibility and uptake by a combination of in vitro and in vivo studies. Based on
a recently developed in vitro model, the effect of the protein source, food matrix, added food ingredients and
food processing conditions will be studied. The in vitro method is medium throughput and can evaluate many
factors e.g. influence of the source, effect of wet or dry heating, interactions between ingredients, addition of
fat and carbohydrates, texturization technologies. These factors will be studied based on dedicated sets of
products which will be selected based on hypothesis and generated as in-kind contribution by the industrial
partners within the consortium. The in vitro results will steer the selection of products which will be studied in
human clinical crossover trials. These human trials are based on postprandial amino acid kinetics analysed after
a single ingestion of the test product. The human trials will reveal the influence of food processes and matrix on
digestion and absorption and will validate the in vitro method. In addition, these human trials will identify
interpersonal variation in amino acid uptake and determine whether some subjects are repeatedly lowest in
protein digestion and absorption, or whether digestion is dependent on protein source, applied processes or
food matrix. Of particular interest will be novel insights into strategies to increase protein digestion and uptake
for those subjects who are always at the low end of the scale, to ensure adequate amino acids uptake for the
population.
The research will lead to new insights that will support the development of nutritious alternative sustainable
products that can help the entire population in reaching protein requirements. Products with good protein
nutritional quality will ensure adequate levels of amino acids also for the part of the population that has lower
digestion, including fragile groups and older consumers.