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Establishing in vitro Protein Digestibility as an Alternative to Animal Testing

Recorded June 17, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.0 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until June 17, 2024.

Description: As an alternative to animal testing, this session provides the rationale and approach for an inter-laboratory study protocol for the purpose of gaining an official method of analysis status for determining protein digestibility using in-vitro approaches. The primary aim is to gain feedback on this approach from differing stakeholders involved in calculating protein quality for foods and food ingredients.

Opening and Introductions

Kathy Greaves, PhD, Principal Nutrition Scientist, The Kellogg Company

Substantiating Protein Content Claims:  Are there Alternatives to Bioassays?

James House, PhD

Professor, Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences

University of Manitoba

Panel Discussion

Additional Panelists

Maya Villeneuve, RD, Health Canada

Elaine Krul, PhD, EKSci, LLC; and others

Q&A

Performance Indicators

  • 4.2.7 Integrates relevant information with previous learning, experience, professional knowledge, and current practice models.
  • 6.2.5 Applies research/evidence-based findings to improve practice, service delivery, and health and nutrition of customers.
  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social sciences in practice.
  • 8.1.1 Interprets and applies evidence-based comparative standards for determining nutritional needs.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

Avoiding Health Flip Flops in a Changing Food Supply

Recorded June 17, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.5 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until June 17, 2024.

Description: Changes in the food supply intended to benefit health can have potential unintended effects. This session will engage stakeholders in dialogue about assessing and balancing nutrition tradeoffs when making decisions associated with large-scale food supply changes. These include agriculture, ingredient, and food formulation decisions. Balanced decisions will help maintain consumer trust in the food supply.

Introduction and Background 

DeAnn Liska, PhD

Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives

Texas A&M University

Nutrition Questions Related to Interesterified Oils Case Study 

Sarah Berry, PhD

Sr Lecturer

King’s College London

Safety Assessment of Interesterified Fats – Traditional Toxicology and Ingredient Approval Approaches 

Bryan Delaney, PhD

Senior Toxicologist

Firmenich SA

Facilitated Dialogue with Stakeholders and Open Q&A 

William Yan, PhD, Health Canada

Matt Pikosky, PhD RD, Dairy Management Inc.

Facilitator: Barbara Lyle, PhD, President of B Lyle, Inc. and Consulting Sr. Advisor IAFNS

Performance Indicators

  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social sciences in practice.
  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision making.
  • 4.2.6 Analyzes and synthesizes information and identifies new information, patterns and findings.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners: How much is too much?

Recorded June 16, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.5 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until June 16, 2024.

Description: The 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommended reducing added sugars intake to less than 6% of calories. Although low- and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCSs) are approved as safe by US, and other global regulators, RDN and consumer confidence in LNCSs as a safe sugars replacement is enhanced by understanding how their safety and efficacy are determined. In this session, the US FDA safety review process, focusing on newer sweeteners (stevia and monkfruit) will be reviewed. Speakers will address the perspective that sweeteners are ubiquitous in the food supply and concerns about intake levels by providing evidence-based information and comparing levels of consumption with acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) as set by the FDA. Finally, the healthcare practitioner perspective on LNCSs use, particularly in children, will be presented. The audience will have the opportunity for a dialogue across these themes of safety, appearance in the food supply, and practical and safe use in the diet as a tool for added sugars intake reduction.

 Introduction and Background 

Moderator: Hope Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDCES, BC-ADM

Hope Warshaw Associates, LLC

Safety Evaluation Process with a Focus on Novel Sweeteners 

Njwen Anyangwe, PhD

Regulatory Toxicologist

US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Food Additive Safety

Low- and No-Calorie Sweetener Occurrence in the Food Supply 

Danika Martyn, PhD

Director of Regulatory Affairs (Europe) & Dietary Intakes - Food & Nutrition

Intertek

Pediatrician Perspective 

Robert Murray, MD

Professor of Human Nutrition
Ohio State University

Q&A/discussion 

Performance Indicators

  • 6.2.5 Applies research/evidence-based findings to improve practice, service delivery, and health and nutrition of customers.
  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social sciences in practice.
  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision making.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

New Innovations in Food Allergy Testing and Patient Care

Recorded June 16, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.5 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until June 16, 2024.

Description: Scientists estimate that food allergies affect at least 32 million Americans, including approximately 6 million children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that food allergies in children have increased by 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, with an even higher increase for peanut allergies. Recent years have seen significant advances in understanding of responses to food allergens such as the development of dose-response models that hold promise for developing more informative labels on food packaging. This session will highlight new research and innovations to enhance food allergen risk assessment and management. These include novel, safe methods for accurate diagnosis of food allergies and severity, and new initiatives for optimizing large-scale research trials and enhancing patient care.

The Current US Food Allergen Regulatory Landscape

Stefano Luccioli, MD

Senior Medical Advisor, Office of Food Additive Safety, FDA CFSAN

The FARE Clinical Network: Advancing New Treatments and Preventive Therapies for Food Allergy Patients

Bruce Roberts, PhD

Chief Research Strategy and Innovation Officer, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE)

Opening the Allergy Black Box: The Path to Risk-Free Challenge Testing

Paul Kearney, PhD

CEO, Data Incites and Strategic Advisor, AllerGenis

Discussion and Q&A

Performance Indicators

  • 4.2.7 Integrates relevant information with previous learning, experience, professional knowledge, and current practice models.
  • 6.2.5 Applies research/evidence-based findings to improve practice, service delivery, and health and nutrition of customers.
  • 6.2.2 Demonstrates knowledge of research instruments and tools (e.g., surveys, interview tools) to support research initiatives.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

The Role of Food in Maintaining Health and Managing Disease

Recorded June 16, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 2.0 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until June 16, 2024.

Description: Current dietary guidance targets the “generally healthy population” yet, more than half of the North American population suffers from some form of diet-related chronic disease. There has been an upsurge in efforts to emphasize the role of food and nutrition in health maintenance and disease management at the retail, healthcare, federal, insurance, and dietary guidance levels. This session will explore the various angles of this concept and where there may be existing or needed alignment, as well as touch on current and future developments to ensure it is a viable option for health maintenance and disease management.

Keynote Address

Barbara Schneeman, PhD

Emeritus Professor, University of California, Davis (formerly FDA)

Perspectives Roundtable –

Moderator: Barbara Schneeman, PhD

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation Perspective

Allison Yoder, MA, RDN, LD

Nutrition in Food Retail Program Development Fellow, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation

Personalized Nutrition – the Research and Academic Perspective

Sharon Donovan, PhD, RD

Professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health; Director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Medical Practitioner Perspective

Jamy Ard, MD

Professor, Epidemiology and Prevention

Wake Forest University

Retail Grocery Perspective

Bridget Wojciak, RDN, LD

Director of Nutrition & Dietetics, The Kroger Co.

Panel Exchange and Q&A

Performance Indicators

  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision-making.
  • 12.1.1 Promotes nutrition programs and resources to address issues of food security nutritional health and overall health and wellness.
  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social sciences in practice.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

Identify Safety Barriers to Broad Adoption of Recycled Polyolefins for Food Packaging

Defining a path to the production of clean recycled plastics is key to their sustainable use in food and beverage packaging. Despite significant advances in recycling science, obstacles remain to broad utilization of recycled plastics including the need for reliable and predictable sources of safe and inexpensive post-consumer products. This project will identify key elements in generating clean recycled plastic such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and use that as a model for improving safety of recycled “challenging” plastics such as polyolefins. The project will also identify potentially hazardous intentionally and non-intentionally added substances (NIAS) in recycled plastic and sources of contamination. Lastly, the project will lead to a roadmap to resolve safety issues and enhance adoption of a wide range of recycled plastics.

Institution: Iowa State University
Principal Investigator: Greg Curtzwiler
Year Awarded: 2021

Read more: Machine-Learning-Based Predictions of Polymer and Postconsumer Recycled Polymer Properties: A Comprehensive Review

Read more: Expanding Plastics Recycling Technologies: Chemical Aspects, Technology Status and Challenges

Read more: Suitability of MRF Recovered Post-Consumer Polypropylene Applications in Extrusion Blow Molded Bottle Food Packaging

Read more: Global Plastic Waste Recycling and Extended Producer Responsibility Laws

Read more: Understanding Intentionally and Non-Intentionally Added Substances and Associated Threshold of Toxicological Concern in Post-Consumer Polyolefin for Use as Food Packaging

This work is supported by the IAFNS Food Packaging Safety & Sustainability Committee.

Food And Nutrition Science Research at the University of Manitoba

Recorded October 13, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.0 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until October 13, 2024.

Description: In this session, researchers from the University of Manitoba will present and discuss the benefits of functional foods.  Speakers will cover the production of bioactive peptides through enzymatic hydrolysis of food proteins, including antihypertensive, antioxidant, anticholinesterase and antiproliferative peptides. In addition to addressing the optimized enzymatic release of peptides, the structure-function properties of biopeptides elucidated using in vitro, in vivo and chemometric approaches will be covered. Further, this session will address critical questions relating to the extent to which phytochemicals in grains and other plant-derived functional foods can confer health benefits. This will include a more detailed discussion of the fundamental biochemistry of phytochemicals particularly phenolic and carotenoid constituents, including their structural identification and antioxidant actions at the cellular level.  The session will expand on the biological activity of biopeptides and therefore, the potential physiological and ultimately, health impact of functional foods that contain them.

Webinar program:

Welcome and Introduction

Blood pressure-reducing effect of wheat bread formulated with leaf polyphenol extract

  • Dr. Rotimi Aluko, Professor, University of Manitoba

Phytochemicals in cereals as important components for grain-based functional foods: Phenolics as exemplary compounds

  • Dr. Trust Beta, Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1), University of Manitoba

Bioaccessible Phenolic Compounds in Canadian Hull-less Barley Varieties

  • Pamela Drawbridge, PhD student, University of Manitoba

Performance Indicators

  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision-making.
  • 6.2.3 Analyzes and interprets data to form valid conclusions and to make recommendations.
  • 8.1.2 Integrates knowledge of biological, physical, and social sciences with knowledge of food and nutrition to make decisions related to nutrition care.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

Advancing Exposure Assessment for Food Contaminants Through Implementation of Probabilistic Modeling

Risk assessments for foods, ingredients and additives have evolved over the past few decades to incorporate new techniques such as benchmark dose modeling, and to further develop the utility of tools such as the threshold of toxicological concern, and even to explore advancements in carcinogen risk assessment. However, exposure assessments still tend to rely on deterministic approaches utilizing conservative inputs. Deterministic assessments are easy to conduct and easy to interpret; however, as point estimates of exposure, they do not account for variability in the level and/or likelihood of occurrence of a chemical or population differences in exposure inputs. Probabilistic assessments can further refine deterministic assessments using distributions for various exposure inputs and, as such, better account for exposure uncertainty. This project will survey the current state of adoption of probabilistic exposure modeling by regulatory agencies to inform risk management decisions and regulations for food contaminants, develop criteria for determining high quality distributions for input variables, and highlight the value of further integration of probabilistic exposure assessments into regulatory frameworks, including a discussion of factors that hinder widespread adoption.

Institution: Risk Science International
Principal Investigator: Greg Paoli, Principal Risk Scientist
Year Awarded: 2021

This work is supported by the IAFNS Food and Chemical Safety Committee.

Reducing Sodium Intake – a Food Supply Approach

Recorded August 31, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.0 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until August 31, 2024.

Description: Over the past 8 iterations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, sodium intake has exceeded recommended amounts. Elevated intake is the result of many factors, to include quantity in the food supply and food choice or eating behavior. To mitigate one of the most difficult challenges, behavior change, there has been a renewed focus on the food supply factor.  In fact, substantial progress has been made to reduce sodium in processed and packaged foods, although challenges remain due to the complex roles of sodium in food safety, technical function, and taste. This session will provide an overview of the tools available to reduce sodium in foods that maintain safety, function, and taste, to include examples from the marketplace. Challenges with specific food products will be examined. Finally, speakers will focus on one of the most used tools, potassium chloride, and relay data from a recently published modeling study that explored the full potential of this tool for sodium reduction and the effect this could have on sodium and potassium intakes in the US population.

Webinar program:

Welcome from IAFNS

Naomi Fukagawa, MD PhD, USDA-ARS - Moderator

Current Status of Sodium Reduction in Foods - What Has Been Done, and How Much is Possible?

  • Janice Johnson, PhD, Cargill

Tools for Sodium Reduction in Foods – The Fundamentals

  • Soo-Yeun Lee, PhD, University of Illinois

Use of Potassium-Based Sodium Replacers - What Happens to Nutrient Intake?

  • Mary Murphy, MS, RD, Exponent

 

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  1. The multiple roles of sodium in foods and the complexities of reducing this ingredient in different food categories.
  2. The tools available for sodium reduction, including the potential for potassium chloride use in the food supply to affect intakes of sodium and potassium.
  3. Progress in sodium reduction and what is needed to achieve more.

Performance Indicators

  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision making.
  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social science in practice.
  • 8.3.6 Keeps abreast of current nutrition and dietetics knowledge and trends.

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey

Can We Agree? Dietary Guidance Related To Low- And No-Calorie Sweeteners In The US And Canada

Recorded August 26, 2021

Continuing Education Hours: IAFNS is a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) provider with the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR). CDR Credentialed Practitioners will receive 1.0 Continuing Professional Education Unit (CPEU) for completion of this recorded webinar until August 26, 2024.

Description:

The 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee reviewed the evidence related to low- and no-calorie sweetener (LNCSs) use and weight, recommending that LNCSs be considered as an option for weight management (with limited evidence). The Dietary Guidelines that followed state that LNCSs “may reduce calorie intake in the short-term and aid in weight management”. At the same time, the most recent Canadian Food Guide recommends that foods and beverages that are unsweetened should be recommended (regardless of sweetening with or without calories). The World Health Organization is also set to release the latest guidance on use of LNCSs sometime in 2021. This session will offer clarity on the evidence review processes and rationale for dietary recommendations specific to LNCSs, across the US and Canada, and considering other global approaches. The panel will discuss evidence-review processes and final recommendations, identify evidence gaps, and describe the translation from evidence to policies that aim to protect the health of the target populations. Discussion will include translation of guidance for practitioners that counsel individuals with different goals that may include sugar reduction as a strategy.

Webinar program:                                                                     

Welcome from IAFNS

  • Johanna Dwyer, DSc, RD, Tufts University - Moderator

The DGAC Perspective

  • Beth Mayer-Davis, PhD RD, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A Canadian Perspective

  • Mary L'Abbe, PhD, University of Toronto

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  1. Explain the evidence evaluation processes that are used by the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and Health Canada, and the respective rationales for selecting that process.
  2. Describe the evidence base for use of low-calorie sweeteners and translation into dietary guidance as well as evidence that would be useful for future reviews.
  3. Explain the recommendations for LCS use and the underlying rationale, as defined in the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee report and translated in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and compare/contrast these with recommendations from other global authorities.

Performance Indicators

  • 4.1.2 Interprets and integrates evidence-based research and literature in decision making.
  • 6.2.3 Interprets data to make recommendations and to inform decisions
  • 8.1.2 Applies knowledge of food and nutrition as well as the biological, physical and social science in practice

If a CEU certificate is needed, please complete the survey