Studying new functional foods to promote mental well-being

Starting today, the Eurecat technology centre is presenting the DANTIAN project at the Alimentaria fair in Barcelona. This project studies new foods and bioactive ingredients that will encourage mental well-being through the understanding of the mechanism at cognitive level and its relationship with the microbiota and intestinal health.

In this vein, studies are being carried out to validate the beneficial effects of foods, extracts and probiotics on cognitive impairment, disorders linked to stress, anxiety and depression. Clinical studies are also under way with some of these compounds, as well as metagenomic studies on intestinal microbiota and searches for biomarkers.

According to Josep Maria del Bas, the project’s technological coordinator and director of Eurecat’s Nutrition and Health Unit, DANTIAN ‘is based on the concept of the gut-brain axis, and it translates the knowledge generated in recent years about the relationship between food and mental health into concrete suggestions of foods and ingredients that may help to maintain our mental well-being when integrated into our diets’.

The DANTIAN project ‘is an example of the potential opened up by the development of new healthy and sustainable ingredients and foods designed with a specific aim, such as, in this case, mental well-being, through the contribution of functionalities and improved nutritional profiles’, a trend that ‘has a long way to go thinking about specific population groups, such as the elderly or young people’, notes Ignasi Papell, the head of Eurecat’s Food Industry Business.

The DANTIAN project has a consortium made up of eight agri-food and technology industry companies: the dairy cooperative company Agrupación Cooperativa Láctea (ACOLACT) that is leading the project, Bioinicia, Mahou San Miguel, Pronat, Unió Nuts, Grupo ICA, Agrícola El Bosque and Biogenetics; and eight technology and research centres: Eurecat, which is the project’s technological coordinator, the National Agri-Food Technology Centre in Extremadura (Centro Tecnológico Agroalimentario de Extremadura – CTAEX), Institut Guttmann, the University of Barcelona, the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Galicia Sur Biomedical Foundation, ANFACO and the Institute of Agrochemicals and Food Technology (Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos – IATA).

DANTIAN is funded with 4.8 million euros by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial – CDTI) as part of the CIEN call for strategic projects and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Companies innovating in food, health and well-being

On Thursday, 7 April, Eurecat is organising the session ‘Companies innovating in food, health and well-being’ as part of the Alimentaria fair, which will look at the trends affecting food innovation and success stories with industry companies.

The session will also feature the participation of the companies Mahou San Miguel and Agrícola El Bosque, which will talk about the DANTIAN project; the Ametller Origen Group, which will present the VALACTICAT circular economy project on the recovery of whey and other projects for sustainable and healthy foods; Microalgae, which will present its microalgae as an alternative protein source and different biocompounds that can be extracted from it; and Torrons i Mel Alemany, which will present new vegetable spread products, among others.