The Symposium and the Workshop on ‘The role of proteins within a nutritious, healthy and sustainable diet’
30-31 March 2017, Institut Paul Bocuse, Lyon, France
The two days event was consist of the one-day symposium with 8 speakers and one day workshop.The first day was a symposium as following:
- Alex Johnstone, Senior Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen, UK talked about Protein for appetite control across the life course. The challenges to increasing protein are different in every age group. She specialised in studying the protein intake in elderly. In healthy people, the kidney is very adapted to increase protein intake. Liquid intake is better for elderly because they cannot detect if the liquid contains high protein. This talk leads my opinion that probably protein bar seem not appetising to increase intake. So maybe it is better to increase protein intake through a meal.
- Charlotte M. BUCKLEY, PhD student, University of Bristol, UK investigated the relationship between savoury taste and protein content in blended foods. She found that there is no interaction between savoury and protein content. People, in general, tend to overestimate protein content of food.
- Anestis DOUGKAS, Research Scientist, Institute Paul Bocuse, France and Lund University, Sweden delivered her research on The effects of breakfasts varying in protein source on appetite and energy intake. She used rice pudding, a semi-liquid food model because it is easy to manipulate. She used 2 different sources of protein: from animal – milk protein isolate, and from plant – plant protein isolate. She found that it is no different in appetite, so it is better to use plant protein as it is more sustainable.
- Laetitia GUERIN-DEREMAUX, Senior Research Manager in Nutrition and Health R&D, Roquette, France presented NUTRALYS® pea protein when Nutrition & Health meet food innovation. Pea was selected as the raw material as it is not in the list of allergen. As vegetable taste is not familiar for French, they make it into powder. Another obstacle is that pea has a strong taste, thus they mix it with other ingredients and camouflage the taste. Thirty grammes of Nutralys is enough to modulate fullness.
- Christelle GUILLET, Associate Professor at University Clermont Auvergne, France explained the role of dietary protein intake in the prevention of sarcopenia of ageing. First, she explained about sarcopenia and how the increase in protein intake can prevent sarcopenia. Whey protein is digested faster than the casein.
- Sophie AUSTIN, University of Bristol, UK described if humans value one macronutrient more than other. I did not really pay attention to it since I was very sleepy.
- Nicole NEUFINGERL, Nutrition Scientist R&D, Unilever, Netherlands presented the effect of changing portion sizes on vegetable and meat consumption, waste and meal satisfaction. The research answered how much can people decrease the meat and increase the vegetables.
- The presentation was closed by John COVENEY, Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Flinders University, Australia who explained about Food and The Environment: how do we plan for an environmentally sustainable food supply? He emphasised that climate change and food supply are influencing each other. It is not only about “what should we be doing in order to eat sustainably but “How to do it” is the same importance.
In the middle of those presentations, we had lunch and I ordered a vegetarian menu in advanced. I wonder what my highly protein vegetarian menu would be (*excited). The lunch was two courses: main menu and desserts. Surprisingly, I got almost exactly the same main course as the normal menu, just that I did not get the animal protein. The meat was just disappeared. It was replaced by another slice of potato. I felt somehow ironic. Asking a vegetarian menu does not mean that I don’t want the protein and asking for more carbs though….
The workshop
The second day was the workshop. It was begun with the presentation from SEB about the cooking machine for legumes. In a glance, it looks like a rice cooker, but it has several modes depending on which type of legume is going to be cooked. Different legumes have different properties and need different processing parameter to cook. That is what differ this machine with the normal rice cooker. After the presentation, we were divided into two groups. We were given a task to develop an appetiser with high protein content for a French elderly who does not like soup. We were 8-9 people in each group, given 2 hours to discuss, cook, and calculate the energy content of our dish.At first, our group discussed to make soup as according to Prof. Heather Hartwell research, everyone likes soup regardless the seasons. But then we found out that the person we tried to help, does not like soup. We consider to make Quiche or porridge, and Quiche won due to the cultural background. Only two representative people from each group were allowed to cook in the kitchen. The others just help and calculate. Our group trusted Prof. Heather and Margarite to cook as the ones who are experienced in making pie dough and quiche.
The battle happened during the cooking process as one concerned with keeping the French technique/tradition, and the other wanted to increase both nutritional and appearance value. We used chickpea flour for the pie dough, a mix of wild mushroom, lentils, onion, bell pepper and tomato. Interestingly, the quiche tastes really good. I was fascinated by the result.
After cooking session, Lawrence, the chef from Institut Paul Bocuse showed a cooking demo to make Aspergers, broccoli and rhubarb desserts. The big plasma screens show in detail what the chef was doing. After the demo, we tried the food and also the dish we created. It is amazing how complicated one dish can be. I don’t see it as a wife-friendly technique. (Of course not. It is gastronomy, Dwi). What I am going to say is nowadays, I see lesser and lesser women go and spend time in the kitchen cooking for her family. And lesser people know and understand of what they are eating. Meanwhile, food and eating are fundamental to the nation’s health. If a chef makes a sophisticated dish, I am sure it will be appreciated by the high class, but will it encourage people to cook?
The day was ended with lunch in the experimental restaurant. That day, they evaluate the new design of dessert spoon.
Ps. I was going to try a surprising menu, but knowing the fact that they serve very random food, I prefer to be safe and pretend as a vegetarian who eat fish again, even though, my experience eating many fish dishes in Europe has never been satisfiying. Fish dish in Indonesia still the best. It is not only that they do not use as many herbs and spices as Indonesian do, but also I found the fish in Europe is tasteless. In Indonesia, even if you cook with the same method, I can really differentiate the taste of each fish. Tenggiri (mackerel?), bandeng (milk fish), mujair (mozambique tilapia), lele (cat fish), nila (tilapia), tongkol (little tuna) have a pronounced different taste. And I assure you that small fish tastes way much better than big fish.