Laboratory of Food Chemistry & Biochemistry   Food chemistry is the discipline that deals with the major and minor constituents of food and its raw materials, as well as with their functionality, their fate during food processing and storage. Within this general theme, the Laboratory of Food Chemistry & Biochemistry, as a member of LFoRCe, has chosen to mainly concentrate its efforts on cereal constituents and how they influence food production and quality. The research mission of the laboratory reads as follows: 1/ to generate basic insights into the starch, nonstarch polysaccharide, and storage and physiologically active protein constituents of cereals, and 2/ to apply such insights with the aim to understand and improve processing, final product and/or health related functionality in biotechnological processes where cereals are used. Cereals indeed make up a more than significant proportion of a balanced human diet, be it as bread, pastry, biscuits, breakfast cereals, beer, rice, pasta products starch syrups, .... The industrial sector converting the raw materials to intermediate or end use products includes, amongst others, milling companies, starch processing units, malting companies, small and industrial bakeries, rice and pasta processing plants, as well as rice and breakfast cereal producers and biscuit companies. The biodiversity of the raw materials and the ever increasing demand for optimum health-related and technological functionalities necessitates the systematic development of fundamental scientific expertise on cereal constituents, enzymes, and functional ingredients and products at the University level and its application to solve specific industrial problems. Therefore, the Laboratory's activities can be structured into four strongly interdependent research lines, i.e.: Line 1: Cereal constituents This research line focuses on grain constituents, i.e. starch and non-starch polysaccharides, storage and non-storage proteins, and lipids, and aims at uncovering the relation between their structural/physico-chemical characteristics and their functionality in cereal processing. Line 2: Enzymes The focus of this research line is on hydrolases, i.e. polysaccharide hydrolases (mainly xylanases) and peptidases, and redox enzymes, on the one hand, and on the functionality of these enzymes in cereal applications, on the other hand. In particular, our efforts aim at unraveling the structure-function relation of these 'bio-active proteins' and improving their technological performance by a molecular biological approach. Enzymes are used as tools to study the role of cereal constituents in grain processing (research line 1), to produce functional components (research line 3), and to improve production parameters and quality of cereal-derived end-products (research line 4). Line 3: Functional ingredients and products Here the focus is on the production of components with specific technological and/or health-related functionality, be it in batch from co-products of the plant-processing industry or in situ during the production of food products. In addition, the functionality of yeast and yeast metabolites in fermented cereal products is studied. Line 4: Cereal-derived end-products The fourth research line is situated closer towards the end of the food production chain and aims at improving the structural, rheological, organoleptic and health-related properties of cereal-derived end-products. In the non-food area, research is ongoing on the development of bio-based, high performance materials from gluten, an important co-product from the wheat processing industry.

In the following pages, we give an overview of most of our research projects. Their funding today and in the recent past is from many different sources, including privately held companies such as Alpro, Aventis, AVEVE, Beneo Remy, Cargill, Danisco, Kellogg Co., Lotus Bakeries, Mars, Meneba, Pastridor, Procter&Gamble, Puratos, Soubry, Syral, and Tiense Suikerraffinaderij, as well as from Flanders' Food, the Flemish IWT, the FWO-Vlaanderen, the K.U.Leuven Industrial Research Fund, the K.U.Leuven Research Fund, the Methusalem programme, and the European Union (e.g. Solfibread, Healthgrain, Gemini). Needless to say, we appreciate the support of and interest in our work.

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