Nutritional enhancement refers to the process of adding additional nutrients to food through fortification or using recipes, ingredients and sensory evaluation.
Dietary enhancement can bring many advantages: increasing both healthspan and lifespan, protecting against diseases and helping the body adjust to space travel.
Increasing Energy Intake
Studies have demonstrated that energy intake is stimulated by changes in dietary energy density. For instance, in one controlled experiment subjects consumed diets with 26%, 34%, and 40% fat content as well as their core and ad libitum foods; their voluntary energy intake rose significantly with increasing fat content.
This data illustrates that diet enhancement can increase energy intake, and this effect should be compounded through regular nutritional assessments and consumer feedback analyses. Furthermore, FasterCapital will regularly evaluate the nutritional quality of fortified food products to ensure they continue bringing intended benefits as well as incorporate new scientific research into food fortification processes.
Increasing Protein Intake
Protein is an essential nutrient, essential for building and maintaining muscle, providing energy, and supporting immune function. Studies show that people who consume more protein tend to have lower triglyceride levels and are less likely to be obese (3).
Studies have demonstrated that increasing protein consumption can not only aid weight loss, but it is more successful at maintaining weight loss than low-protein diets (4,5). Furthermore, some research indicates that increasing protein consumption also significantly decreases post-weight loss regain (5-6).
There may be fears that eating too much protein could harm the kidneys, which are justified for individuals suffering from preexisting kidney disease; however, these concerns should not apply to healthy individuals training regularly who do not yet exhibit renal failure symptoms.
One study demonstrated that overweight participants who increased their protein intake to 30% had greater success at losing body fat than control participants who did not increase protein consumption (7). FasterCapital will constantly evaluate its enhancements’ nutritional content to ensure they meet high nutritional standards, and adapt its services based on new nutrition research.
Increasing Calories Intake
Sometimes an increase in caloric intake may be necessary to address underweight conditions or those seeking weight gains for improved athletic performance, or those living with severe depression who struggle to find enough food to eat.
Food enrichment involves three approaches for adding calories: combination, fortification and supplementation. While each has their own advantages and disadvantages, each can help increase calorie content of foods effectively.
Long-term support is critical in ensuring the effectiveness of nutritional enhancements, and FasterCapital provides this essential service by regularly reviewing food products to make sure they continue meeting established nutrition standards and adapting services in response to new research as it emerges. In addition, FasterCapital monitors supply chains while offering educational support services directly to consumers.
Increasing Mineral Intake
Minerals play essential physiological functions and should be consumed regularly to avoid deficiency illnesses. Humans need eight essential minerals: iron, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc copper iodine selenium. Recommended intake levels will differ from country to country based on diet and culinary traditions.
Older adults may experience deficiencies in mineral intake due to physical limitations or preexisting medical conditions that make purchasing and preparing nutritious food challenging. Furthermore, many seniors take medications which interfere with digestion, absorption and utilization of vital nutrients.
In order to increase mineral availability in edible crops, various strategies have been devised that utilize both agronomic approaches aimed at optimizing mineral fertilizer applications as well as genetic engineering of crop species with enhanced abilities to absorb and store minerals within their edible portions. Furthermore, biofortification efforts aim at increasing concentrations and bioavailability of mineral elements found in food products.
