Achieving zero hunger – in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – by ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture is at the centre of the research priorities of Prof Naushad Emmambux in the University’s Department of Consumer and Food Sciences.

In addition to being at the forefront of transdisciplinary and future-focused research aimed at enhancing food and nutrition security, Prof Emmambux is also the principal investigator in the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI)/National Research Foundation (NRF) Centre of Excellence in Food Security at the University of Pretoria, as well as the South African leg of the European Union (EU)-funded InnoFoodAfrica initiative. This is also one of the cross-cutting research focus areas of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Food Systems, also located at the University of Pretoria.

One of the goals of the InnoFoodAfrica initiative is to develop new ways to add value to the cultivation, processing and production of climate-smart African crops, such as sorghum, finger millet, teff, amaranth, faba bean, orange-fleshed sweet potato, Bambara groundnut and cowpea, which have excellent nutritional properties.

Prof Naushad Emmambux

According to Prof Emmambux, the United Nations defines food security as “all people, at all times, having physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life”.

Prof Emmambux describes how many countries, especially in Africa, are suffering from the triple burden of malnutrition: macronutrient malnutrition among children, such as protein energy malnutrition, which can cause stunting; malnutrition that leads to diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as Type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as cardiovascular diseases; and micronutrient malnutrition due to Vitamin A and iron deficiencies in people’s diets.

Malnutrition, especially instances of malnourishment that lead to diet-related NCDs, relates to the consumption of energy-dense foods as opposed to nutrient-dense foods. It is therefore important to consider foods and food ingredients that are safe, marketable, affordable, ready-to-eat and tasty (SMART) and that can tackle the triple burden of malnutrition, and ensure food security for both infants and adults.

Prof Emmambux’s work in the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences has two dimensions. It focuses on improving nutrition, as well as ensuring environment sustainability. The focus on nutrition involves the development of complementary baby foods to combat protein energy malnutrition, as well as the development of products that are less energy-dense, have a reduced sugar, fat and rapidly digestible starch or a high glycaemic index (GI) content, and have a higher nutrient density. The focus on environmental sustainability, on the other hand, focuses on the development of biodegradable packaging systems, energy-efficient food processing technologies and climate-smart crops that are cultivated in Africa, such as cassava and sorghum.

The development of these revolutionary products and ingredients relies on making use of food biopolymers as a technological innovation for food and nutrition security and sustainability. Prof Emmambux explains how researchers are exploiting the natural biopolymers in food to structure-design food ingredients and food products for food and nutrition security and environmental sustainability. “Starch and protein are both polymers,” he says. “Starch is made up of amylose and an amylopectin polymer of glucose, while protein is a polymer of amino acid.”

Several advances have been made through the use of infrared and microwave treatment, which is energy efficient, as well as extrusion technologies. By adding dietary fibre to a cassava-soy porridge, researchers have been able to reduce its GI, resulting in a slowly digestible starch, which maintains satiety for longer. By modifying the starch in maize meal by infrared treatment, researchers have also been able to reduce its GI, and thus the tempo of its digestibility. By using amylose lipid complex starch nanoparticles to replace fat, high-fat foods are turned into low-fat foods. Starch is also used to encapsulate bioactive compounds for health benefits, and a starch nanofiller and composite with protein are used to manufacture biodegradable plastics.

One of the goals of the InnoFoodAfrica initiative is to develop new ways to add value to the cultivation, processing and production of climate-smart African crops, such as amaranth.

Researchers have found that one of the causes of protein energy malnutrition, especially with the use of infant cereals, is that these porridges are often diluted to make it easier for infants to swallow. This dilution has the effect of diluting the nutrients that are taken up as well. Promoting the use of porridges prepared from indigenous African grains can reduce this form of malnutrition by reducing the viscosity of the starch biopolymers and improving the nutrient value of the cereal that is consumed by the infant. Prof Emmambux stresses that some locally available porridge should not be recommended as baby food. He also explains how microwave and infrared treatments at the household level can be used to reduce the viscosity of such complementary foods.

Prof Emmambux believes that a multidisciplinary approach is imperative to achieving the objectives of SDG 2. As such, researchers in this field collaborate within and between disciplines for synergy. This includes collaboration with scientists in sensory science, nutritional science, food physics, polymer science, materials science, chemical engineering and agricultural economics, as well as researchers in the National Centre for Nanostructured Materials at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).