Scientists at UC Davis, in partnership with the Mars Advanced Research Institute, have announced a significant breakthrough in the production of low-calorie sugar substitutes, such as allulose. This discovery could help address one of the primary obstacles to the widespread adoption of these alternatives: production costs.
Led by researchers from UC Davis, Digestiva is developing a cutting-edge solution of specialized enzymes to enhance the nutritional efficacy of dietary proteins. Their goal is to make proteins more easily digestible, which may allow people to access the full health benefits of proteins without compromising their cultural and personal connections to food.
We’ve all heard the advice, “Eat more fiber.”
But the reality behind that seemingly simple recommendation is much more complex when it comes to human health. As part of a $3.7 million National Institutes of Health-funded project, UC Davis scientists are building a library of biomarkers associated with specific fiber food sources as they pass through the gut. The goal is to build a comprehensive understanding of the structural diversity of fibers and how those structures influence digestive health.
As the fruit trees bloom, seeds sprout and gardens fill with flowers, the UC Davis Humanities Institute will delve into the rich cultural landscape of California in the next few months with its year-long public initiative, “CULTIVATION: Food, Farming, and Heritage in the Sacramento Valley and Beyond.” The upcoming events are focused on Asian and South Asian contributions.
This article highlights and summarizes a policy brief written by Marianne Bitler, professor of economics at UC Davis, about Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Some previous studies have found that food insecurity and food-bank utilization increased when children age out of WIC eligibility, while others have found no such effects. In a study, Bitler and colleagues explored the spillover effects of child WIC participation on other family members’ food consumption, biomarkers, and food security.
Chemist Justin Siegel is one of two UC Davis faculty members elected to the National Academy of Inventors’ 2022 class of fellows. Siegel's work in computational enzyme engineering is focused on discovering catalysts that improve health and environmental outcomes. He holds more than 100 global patents and has co-founded eight startups in the last 10 years.
When he was a college student, Pierpaolo Polzonetti was hired by an opera-loving cookbook author to research composer Giuseppe Verdi’s favorite recipes. There weren’t any, but it led Polzonetti to a fascination with what he dubs “gastronomic signs” in opera. Many years later, the result is the recently published book Feasting and Fasting in Opera: From Renaissance Banquets to the Callas Diet by Polzonetti, the Jan and Beta Popper Professor of Music at UC Davis.
Andrés Reséndez, a professor of history at UC Davis whose groundbreaking research revealed the breadth of Native American enslavement, will study the lasting global impacts of Magellan's voyage with the support of a 2020 Carnegie Fellowship.
Joe Sasto (B.A., communication, ’10) was a contestant on the latest season of Bravo’s Top Chef television series, making it to the Final 3 before exiting the show.
The colloquium launching the UC Davis Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science featured scholars from around the world talking about the chemicals and compounds in tea, types of tea, the Japanese tea ceremony and a kind of ceramic that for 500 years has been considered the best for making tea.
