How fermented foods can support health and sustainability, with Prof. Christophe Courtin PhD
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In this episode, Prof. Christophe Courtin PhD from KU Leuven in Belgium discusses the potential of fermented foods to provide health benefits and create more sustainable food systems. His work focuses in particular on fermenting cereal grains as a way to create products with better properties or enhanced health impact. Fermentation is a form of food processing that can introduce benefits beyond the raw materials used. Prof. Courtin leads HealthFerm, a European project with the aim of generating research on fermentation that supports a transition to more plant-based products in the diet, using wheat, oats, fava bean, and yellow pea. Fermentation can be scaled up both in industrialized countries and in developing countries. More intervention studies are needed to find out the health-promoting components of fermented foods and their mechanisms – although scientists know a fair amount about yogurt and other fermented dairy products, evidence is needed for other types of fermented foods. This episode is part of our series on the latest fermented food science.
Episode abbreviations and links:
- Review on sourdough bread fermentation: Wheat Sourdough Breadmaking: A Scoping Review
- HealthFerm project website
- Paper establishing a link between live dietary microbes and health benefits: Positive Health Outcomes Associated with Live Microbe Intake from Foods, Including Fermented Foods, Assessed using the NHANES Database
Additional resources:
ISAPP blog post: Food of the future: Fermented and sustainable
About Prof. Christophe Courtin PhD:
Prof. Christophe Courtin is a full professor at the Laboratory of Food Chemistry and Biochemistry at KU Leuven, Belgium. His research focuses on cereal constituents, the enzymes that degrade them and microorganisms in cereal processing. The emphasis is on a basic understanding of the structure and properties of these constituents as well as on their technological and health functionality in cereal-based processes and products. Expertise and an extensive network in this area have been built up through over 40 supervised PhDs, projects and national and international collaborations. He coordinates HealthFerm, a 23 partner Horizon Europe project. He is author of 350 peer-reviewed papers (WoS h-index: 69) and inventor on 12 patent families. Recent awards are the Harald Perten Prize (ICC, 2021) and the Belfort Lecture Award (Whistler Centre for Carbohydrate Research, Purdue University, 2023).
