{"id":4231,"date":"2010-01-13T14:35:44","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T04:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.australiantropicalfoods.com\/?p=4231"},"modified":"2014-03-01T05:02:37","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T19:02:37","slug":"down-under-to-discover-health-benefits-of-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/down-under-to-discover-health-benefits-of-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Down Under to discover health benefits of food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queensland Government
\nDepartment of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Media Release
\n13 January 2010<\/p>\n

\"Mallory,<\/a>

Mallory, Anouk and Elodie are three French students studying food science at DEEDI\u2019s Hamilton Research Station<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019d expect a long itinerary for young adventurers to Australia, but three French students have their sights set on attractions beyond the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
\n\u00a0
\nMallory Le Boulanger, Elodie Le Roux and Anouk Besson are on industry placements at the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation\u2019s (DEEDI) Hamilton Research Station, hoping to help uncover the health benefits of selected fruits, vegetables and nuts.<\/p>\n

DEEDI biochemist Dr Kent Fanning said the students had been working on interesting projects to enrich their knowledge of \u2018functional foods\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cMallory is working as part of a team to analyse carotenoids in Queensland vegetables, fruits and nuts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarotenoids are a class of naturally occurring pigments that may increase the health benefits gained from the foods in which they are contained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSignificant consumption of carotenoids has been associated with reduced incidence of a variety of cancers, heart disease and certain eye conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elodie is part of a team developing methods for the extraction of a particular phytochemical (naturally occurring compound in plants), Camptothecin, from plant material.<\/p>\n

Camptothecin is already registered for clinical use in the treatment of a range of cancers.<\/p>\n

Anouk is working on a project to separate bioactive (extra-nutritional) compounds from tropical juices, such as plum, to incorporate them into value-added, premium-quality health drinks, food supplements and nutraceuticals.<\/p>\n

Dr Fanning said the students were all undertaking degrees in food processing at the Institut National Superieur de Formation Agroalimentaire in Rennes, France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis training is a requirement of their course where a laboratory research project has to be undertaken in an organisation abroad to improve English language skills and to learn about project organisation,\u201d Dr Fanning said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been with us since September last year and will finish up with us here this month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mallory said she was intrigued by DEEDI\u2019s Innovative Food Technologies unit because of the potential to learn more about food\u2019s ability to balance health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am interested in working in the area of health and dietary intake, and I feel the projects on vegetables\u2019 properties against obesity, or zeaxanthin from corn to protect age-related macula degeneration, can teach me a lot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, it is a safe structure for me to do my practice here. Training abroad for foreign students is not always easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, units accept you but don\u2019t give you responsibility. Here, I feel they want to teach me something. I have a real project and some results to achieve. I have an aim to motivate me.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cPrevious students in my school have been working at Primary Industries and Fisheries and that made us want to come here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spoke about projects that were interesting, and the staff created a good working atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThus, I could associate my two aims: doing an attractive training course whilst discovering an unknown country.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on DEEDI\u2019s research into the potential health benefits of functional foods visit http:\/\/www.deedi.qld.gov.au <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queensland Government Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation Media Release 13 January 2010 \u00a0 \u00a0 You\u2019d expect a long itinerary for young adventurers to Australia, but three French students have their sights set on attractions beyond the Sydney Harbour Bridge. \u00a0 Mallory Le Boulanger, Elodie Le Roux and Anouk Besson are on industry placements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atf-hot-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4231"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4913,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4231\/revisions\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/australiantropicalfoods.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}