nutrition - video

Feedback from nutrition expert

Jackie, hi,


An interesting idea, your hybrid food, but doesn’t sound like meals would be very much fun! If you think of all the rolls food has in your life other than nutrition it’s difficult to imagine a liquid concentrate being fulfilling. (except of course when you’re working flat out to finish an assignment!)

But to answer your questions: the Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand (NRVs) provide values recommended for all nutrients (you can access this document on the Ministry of Health website). The RDIs provide the amount of nutrients thought to be ensure that most people will have sufficient to meet identified outcomes, this mainly refers to the micronutrients (i.e. vitamins and minerals). Energy obviously depends on activity levels, body composition and growth. And amount of fat and carbohydrates are related to energy (as is protein to some extent)—research has not been able to identify the optimal amount of the energy providing nutrients, but current recommendations to reduce risk of chronic disease are for 20-35% of energy from fat, 45-65% from carbohydrates and 15-25% from protein.

In answer to your 2nd question, yes, we have enough information to produce an artificial food that can allow survival, but 1) who would want to eat only that? And 2) survival might not be optimal. Much of current nutrition research is learning about components of food other than currently identified “essential” nutrients that are beneficial for health. So if you do not get enough vitamin C, after a period of time you will die (so vitamin C is essential), but if by consuming brassicas (e.g. broccoli, brussel sprouts) you will obtain a chemical that will help reduce risk of colon cancer (but if you don’t eat these foods you still might never get colon cancer).

Plants are a more efficient way to obtain nutrition than through animal sources. And it is possible to design a food that meets basic nutritional needs better than is likely when people self-select a diet from all available foods. One of the exciting potentials with plants are the phytochemicals that may have benefits beyond the basic ‘required’ nutrition (i.e. the NRVs/RDIs) – can these be concentrated in your hybrid food, or will they be lost in the processing?

Please feel free to get back to me if you don’t understand my comments.


Best wishes,
Janet

email back from nutrition expert

RE: professional advise seeked for my current research‏‏
From:
Weber, Janet (J.L.Weber@massey.ac.nz)
Sent:
Thu 5/21/09 1:32 PM
To:
jackie chow (jac_msgurl@hotmail.com)


Jackie, hi,

I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to you. It’s been a very busy week, and today will be the same. I hope to be able to get back to you over the weekend or early next week, please let me know if my response at this later time is still useful.


Best wishes,Janet

photo session 21/05

photo session 20/05

photo session 17/05

email for nutrition expert

My name is Jackie Chow. I'm a 4th year digital media student from Victoria University. I’m currently doing a group project for a design paper “Design Led Futures” which focuses on the enhanced design concepts for the future.

Our project is designed to look into the lives of human being’s, 80 years in the future. Our theme is based around “plants” and the benefits they could provide for us in the distant future. Our design touches on four different aspects: architecture, communication, energy and nutrition. I am focusing on hybrid food design, nutrition.

My concept for a future hybrid food is a concentrated liquid that contains all the nutritional aspects a human needs. In the future, I believe humans will not need to eat a variety of foods such as meats, vegetables and fruits etc to achieve the required intake of nutrition our bodies need today. Instead I propose this is possible through a manipulated substance that contains H20, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, proteins, vitamins and minerals.

In order to complete the project to a convincible level, I need some professional advice or opinion. It would be a great help to my group and I if you can help us to answer a few questions.

Questions:
What are the everyday basic nutritional requirement for a human, as in the average percentage for each nutritional aspect (such as how many percent of the nutrition needed for carbohydrates, how many percent needed for fats, water etc)?

Do you believe that human can survive by feeding on the proposed manipulated substance that contains only the required amount of nutritions needed for human body?

Please comment on the proposed hybrid food in a short paragraph.

Please describe the proposed hybrid food in 3 to 5 keywords.

Please advise on any improvement, or areas of refinement needed for the proposed concept in order to achieve a more convincible design.


*If you wish to know any further information about our project, please let me know, or have a look at the following websites.
our project blog: http://www.atd.ac.nz/dlf/
"Design Led Futures" course website: http://blogs.mediazone.co.nz/2009-dmdn411/
"Design Led Futures" website: http://designledfutures.com/main/-flash



We are looking forward to your reply.

Nutrition expert questions

What are the everyday basic nutritional requirement for a human, as in the average percentage for each nutritional aspect (such as how many percent of the nutrition needed for carbohydrates, how many percent needed for fats, water etc)?

Do you believe that human can survive by feeding on the proposed manipulated substance that contains only the required amount of nutritions needed for human body?

Please comment on the proposed hybrid food in a short paragraph.

Please describe the proposed hybrid food in 3 to 5 keywords.

Please advise on any improvement, or areas of refinement needed for the proposed concept in order to achieve a more convincible design.

sketches

where the hybrid food are generated

overall summary of all design aspects

nutrition - philosophy

Nutrition is a basic human survival need. However, statistics show that only 20% of our dietary intake contain the nutrients we need to absorb. In order to reduce the use of the world’s resources, humans will need to rely on technology to determine the nutrient levels in different foods, and ensure that only the required amount is extracted and used to sustain our lives.

The concept for a future hybrid food is a concentrated liquid that contains all the nutritional aspects a human needs. In the future, we believe humans will not need to eat a variety of foods such as meats, vegetables and fruits etc to achieve the required intake of nutrition our bodies need today. Instead we propose this is possible through a manipulated substance that contains H20, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, proteins, vitamins and minerals.

nutrition - experimenting with the structure

here's a version of the structure for the nutrition containing inside the liquid that i've created using blender.

nutrition - hybrid food concept

research

Macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, fiber, proteins, and water
Micronutrients: minerals, vitamins
* 60% of your weight is water, 20% is of fat, 20% is a combination of mostly protein (esp in muscles) plus carbohydrates, minerals + vitamins.

How many calories do you really need?

age sedentary moderately active active
19 - 30 2,000 2,000 - 2,200 2,400
31 - 50 1,800 2,000 2,200
50 + 1,600 1,800 2,000 - 2,200

"Nutrition" design concept images

absorbing nutrition through skin

Nutrition Group - concept + research

General Concept
Basing with the group overall “plant” concept, our concept for the nutrition area will be involving the use of flowers and nectar. Future human will be living in a “giant plant”, where they will get feed and protected in that environment. The idea is that the architecture will generate energy in the way similar to photosynthesis. Through the reaction, food are generated in the interior of the architecture. The way which the food is produced is of similar concept to a flower blossom. The inside of the “giant plant” (some part of walls, ceiling) will have flowers blooming time after time, containing in these flowers are nectar that are highly concentrated in nutrition that human body needed. By taking in these liquid, human will be able to sustain life.

Nutrition research
Nutrition that human need for everyday-
1> Carbohydrates
2> Fat
3> Protein
4> mineral matter
5> vitamin
6> water

According to the research, the sweetness in the honeysuckle is called “Nectar”. Nectar is a liquid that excreted by honeysuckle to attract insects or birds for passing the pollen.
A nectar source is a flowering plant that produces nectar as part of its reproductive strategy. These plants create nectar, which attract pollinating insects and sometimes other animals such as birds.
Nectar source plants are important for beekeeping, as well as in agriculture and horticulture. Their use is particularly important for organic agriculture and organic horticulture, where they serve not only to attract pollinators for crops, but also provide habitat for beneficial insects and other animals that provide pest control.

Natural components of nectar
Although its main ingredient is natural sugar (i.e.,sucrose (table sugar), glucose, and fructose), nectar is a brew of many chemicals. For example, the nicotiana attenuata, a tobacco plant native to the US state of Utah, uses several volatile aromas to attract pollinating birds and moths. The strongest such aroma is benzyl acetone, but the plant also adds bitter nicotine, which is less aromatic and therefore may not be detected by the bird until after taking a drink. Researchers speculate the purpose of this addition is to drive the bird away after only a sip, motivating it to visit other plants to fill its hunger, and therefore maximizing the pollination efficiency gained by the plant for a minimum nectar output.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectar

And nectar has a very beautiful name as it is a “drink of the gods”

energy - photosynthesis research

About Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is a process by which green plants and certain other organisms use the energy of light to convert carbon dioxide and water into the simple sugar glucose. In so doing, photosynthesis provides the basic energy source for virtually all organisms. An extremely important byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen, on which most organisms depend.
Photosynthesis nourishes almost all of the living world directly or indirectly. Like plants, humans and other animals depend on glucose as an energy source, but they are unable to produce it on their own and must rely ultimately on the glucose produced by plants. Moreover, the oxygen humans and other animals breathe is the oxygen released during photosynthesis. Humans are also dependent on ancient products of photosynthesis, known as fossil fuels, for supplying most of our modern industrial energy. These fossil fuels, including natural gas, coal, and petroleum, are composed of a complex mix of hydrocarbons, the remains of organisms that relied on photosynthesis millions of years ago. Thus, virtually all life on earth, directly or indirectly, depends on photosynthesis as a source of food, energy, and oxygen, making it one of the most important biochemical processes known.
As for plants themselves, they use much of this glucose, a carbohydrate, as an energy source to build leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. They also convert glucose to cellulose, the structural material used in their cell walls. Most plants produce more glucose than they use, however, and they store it in the form of starch and other carbohydrates in roots, stems, and leaves. The plants can then draw on these reserves for extra energy or building materials.

How Photosynthesis works

The process of photosynthesis is divided into two stages.

Stage 1: Light dependent reactions
The light-dependent reactions uses solar power to generate ATP and NADPH2, which provide chemical and reducing power.
The reaction happens in the thylakoid membrane and converts light energy to chemical energy. In the thylakoid membranes, chlorophyll is organized along with other molecules into two photosystems (I and II). Photosystems are the light-harvesting units of the thylakoid membrane. Each photosystem has an antenna of a few hundred pigment molecules.

When a photon of light strikes a pigment molecule, the energy is passed from molecule to molecule until it reaches the reaction center which contains a particular form of chlorophyll a. The reaction-center chlorophyll of photosystem I is known as P700 because this pigment is best at absorbing light having a wavelength of 700 nm (the far-red part of the light spectrum). The chlorophyll at the reaction-center of photosystem II is called P680 because its absorption spectrum has a peak of 680 nm (in the red part of the light spectrum). These two pigments, P700 and P680, are actually identical chlorophyll a molecules. However, their association with different protein molecules in the thylakoid membrane accounts for the slight differences in light-absorbing properties. At the reaction center, the absorbed light energy drives an oxidation-reduction reaction (loss and gain of electrons). An excited electron from the reaction-center chlorophyll is captured by a specialized molecule called the primary acceptor.
The energy harvested via the light reaction is stored by forming a chemical called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). a compound used by cells for energy storage. This chemical is made of the nucleotide adenine bonded to a ribose sugar, and that is bonded to three phosphate groups. This molecule is very similar to the building blocks for our DNA.

Stage 2: Light independent reactions
The dark reaction happens when the ATP is used to make glucose.
The dark reaction takes place in the stroma within the chloroplast, and converts CO2 to sugar. This reaction doesn't directly need light in order to occur, but it does need the products of the light reaction (ATP and another chemical called NADPH). The dark reaction involves a cycle called the Calvin cycle in which CO2 and energy from ATP are used to form sugar.

Extra:
Most plants put CO2 directly into the Calvin cycle. Thus the first stable organic compound formed is the glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Since that molecule contains three carbon atoms, these plants are called C3 plants. For all plants, hot summer weather increases the amount of water that evaporates from the plant. Plants lessen the amount of water that evaporates by keeping their stomates closed during hot, dry weather. Unfortunately, this means that once the CO2 in their leaves reaches a low level, they must stop doing photosynthesis. Even if there is a tiny bit of CO2 left, the enzymes used to grab it and put it into the Calvin cycle just don't have enough CO2 to use. Typically the grass in our yards just turns brown and goes dormant. Some plants like crabgrass, corn, and sugar cane have a special modification to conserve water. These plants capture CO2 in a different way: they do an extra step first, before doing the Calvin cycle. These plants have a special enzyme that can work better, even at very low CO2 levels, to grab CO2 and turn it first into oxaloacetate, which contains four carbons. Thus, these plants are called C4 plants. The CO2 is then released from the oxaloacetate and put into the Calvin cycle. This is why crabgrass can stay green and keep growing when all the rest of your grass is dried up and brown.

There is yet another strategy to cope with very hot, dry, desert weather and conserve water. Some plants (for example, cacti and pineapple) that live in extremely hot, dry areas like deserts, can only safely open their stomates at night when the weather is cool. Thus, there is no chance for them to get the CO2 needed for the dark reaction during the daytime. At night when they can open their stomates and take in CO2, these plants incorporate the CO2 into various organic compounds to store it. In the daytime, when the light reaction is occurring and ATP is available (but the stomates must remain closed), they take the CO2 from these organic compounds and put it into the Calvin cycle. These plants are called CAM plants, which stands for crassulacean acid metabolism after the plant family, Crassulaceae (which includes the garden plant Sedum) where this process was first discovered.