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The science of healthy food design: Let’s grow together!
Journal of Functional Foods xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Functional Foods journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jff
Editorial
The science of healthy food design: Let’s grow together!
Food intake and its consequence on human health become a pivotal theme in societal debate so it is not surprising that the visibility of all of the food science sector is growing. Departments of Food Science have sprouted in many Universities and talented young researchers jump into this area, pushing up the quality of the investigation while also developing new connections with other disciplines. Several scientific journals are covering this area and the Journal of Functional Food (JFF) is one of the youngest among them. In ten years of life JFF became a leading journal in the food science field ranking in the first quarter of this category. The key asset of the journal is its focus on the cross over among food science, nutrition and biomedical science: a borderline territory where amazing new knowledge has been produced in the last few years. The possibility to design foods able to keep the healthy status, to prevent the insurgence of pathologies or foods customized on the needs of specific consumer categories is indeed fascinating. Corporate interest is high and regulatory actions to validate the food health claims have been placed in many countries. There is a general consensus that the development of healthy foods must be combined with the consumer demand for natural products and the sustainability of food production. As food scientists we all feel responsible a properly fed planet and to explore all the potential for mother nature to provide health, beyond the simple nutrition. Investigations in the food science field require by definition an interdisciplinary approach. A typical JFF research paper is based on a solid chemical and technological approach, followed up with sound in vitro and in vivo experiments to produce reliable biological data. In this framework of rapid growth, the role of our scientific journal is to secure science credibility and to increase the overall trust around food science. The way to achieve this ambitious objective is to strive for the highest scientific quality of the published papers and to keep our focus on combination between food and health which is a featured characteristic of the JFF papers. In the future we aim at selecting among the manuscript submitted to the journal the real new findings and at the same time we will try to highlight the future trends in the field of healthy foods and ingredients. Functional and healthy foods is an endless innovation area where companies, researchers and academics are constantly seeking new scientific findings. Consequently the risk of overestimate the health benefits of foods, food ingredients or food derived compounds is always very high. To achieve these challenges the outstanding board of international Associate Editors and myself plan to work very hard follow-
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2017.09.002 1756-4646/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ing precise guidelines. We aim at the most effective collaboration with all the authors to provide a transparent, fair, useful and timely peer review. The final goal is to leverage a lively community of readers and contributors willing to send JFF their best papers and ready to act as constructive reviewers when requested. Elsevier, as the publisher, has committed to disseminating the new perspective for the Journal’s overall agenda and strategy to a larger scientific community. It is important for all the food science community to spread the name of the food science journals toward the nutrition and biomedical area. The interest to investigate the physiological consequence of healthy ingredients and functional foods increased enormously among biomedical researchers, however it is necessary to improve the communication between the improve them overall research quality in both fields. It is indeed a great pleasure and an honor for me to act, from this month, as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Functional Food as successor of the Journal founder Prof. Fereidoon Shahidi. I have to thank the authors, the Associate Editors, the members of the editorial board, all the reviewers and last but not least the former Editor in Chief, Prof. Fereidoon Shahidi, for their substantial contribution to ensure scientific quality and success of JFF up to now.
Vincenzo Fogliano University of Wageningen, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected] Available online xxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Functional Foods journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jff
Editorial
The science of healthy food design: Let’s grow together!
Food intake and its consequence on human health become a pivotal theme in societal debate so it is not surprising that the visibility of all of the food science sector is growing. Departments of Food Science have sprouted in many Universities and talented young researchers jump into this area, pushing up the quality of the investigation while also developing new connections with other disciplines. Several scientific journals are covering this area and the Journal of Functional Food (JFF) is one of the youngest among them. In ten years of life JFF became a leading journal in the food science field ranking in the first quarter of this category. The key asset of the journal is its focus on the cross over among food science, nutrition and biomedical science: a borderline territory where amazing new knowledge has been produced in the last few years. The possibility to design foods able to keep the healthy status, to prevent the insurgence of pathologies or foods customized on the needs of specific consumer categories is indeed fascinating. Corporate interest is high and regulatory actions to validate the food health claims have been placed in many countries. There is a general consensus that the development of healthy foods must be combined with the consumer demand for natural products and the sustainability of food production. As food scientists we all feel responsible a properly fed planet and to explore all the potential for mother nature to provide health, beyond the simple nutrition. Investigations in the food science field require by definition an interdisciplinary approach. A typical JFF research paper is based on a solid chemical and technological approach, followed up with sound in vitro and in vivo experiments to produce reliable biological data. In this framework of rapid growth, the role of our scientific journal is to secure science credibility and to increase the overall trust around food science. The way to achieve this ambitious objective is to strive for the highest scientific quality of the published papers and to keep our focus on combination between food and health which is a featured characteristic of the JFF papers. In the future we aim at selecting among the manuscript submitted to the journal the real new findings and at the same time we will try to highlight the future trends in the field of healthy foods and ingredients. Functional and healthy foods is an endless innovation area where companies, researchers and academics are constantly seeking new scientific findings. Consequently the risk of overestimate the health benefits of foods, food ingredients or food derived compounds is always very high. To achieve these challenges the outstanding board of international Associate Editors and myself plan to work very hard follow-
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2017.09.002 1756-4646/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ing precise guidelines. We aim at the most effective collaboration with all the authors to provide a transparent, fair, useful and timely peer review. The final goal is to leverage a lively community of readers and contributors willing to send JFF their best papers and ready to act as constructive reviewers when requested. Elsevier, as the publisher, has committed to disseminating the new perspective for the Journal’s overall agenda and strategy to a larger scientific community. It is important for all the food science community to spread the name of the food science journals toward the nutrition and biomedical area. The interest to investigate the physiological consequence of healthy ingredients and functional foods increased enormously among biomedical researchers, however it is necessary to improve the communication between the improve them overall research quality in both fields. It is indeed a great pleasure and an honor for me to act, from this month, as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Functional Food as successor of the Journal founder Prof. Fereidoon Shahidi. I have to thank the authors, the Associate Editors, the members of the editorial board, all the reviewers and last but not least the former Editor in Chief, Prof. Fereidoon Shahidi, for their substantial contribution to ensure scientific quality and success of JFF up to now.
Vincenzo Fogliano University of Wageningen, The Netherlands E-mail address: [email protected] Available online xxxx