Food Science and Nutrition BSc (Hons)

In ‘Human Metabolism’ you will learn of how the body breaks down various biological molecules such as sugars, fats and proteins to gain energy and how it converts these molecules into the other various essential components required to function normally. You will learn about the disorders that can arise and the resulting consequences, with a food and nutritional sciences approach. Consequences such as malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, diabetes and obesity will be discussed. You will learn about these various aspects in a system/organ-specific manner which will include the liver, the kidneys, heart and digestive tract, allowing you to clearly understand the relationship between normal and disrupted function.

This module introduces the concepts of nutrition as applied to stages of life, from infancy to old age and investigates diet-related health conditions. You will draw on your existing knowledge of dietary reference values and guidelines and explore the different requirements and reasons for these, in different stages of life and states of health. You will also learn the theories of behaviour change so that you understand the ways in which health professionals can plan behaviour change interventions and support populations to make heathier choices.
Topics covered in this module include:
Principles of nutrition and dietetics:
Health promotion theory and practice,
Planning and constructing interventions
Energy balance and energy expenditure calculations.
Under and over nutrition:
Nutritional significance and requirements for nutrients through the lifecycle.
Diet-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Diabetes mellitus, Cancer and dietary factors

The aim of the module is to provide you with an opportunity to develop your self-awareness of your knowledge, skills, attributes and experience, to help support you in your career journey. You will gain hands-on experience of a work setting, allowing you to explore the roles and responsibilities if a food or nutrition-related industry. You will reflect on your experiences and consider how these can contribute to the development of graduate attributes and employability skills.

You will learn some of the fundamental theoretical principles in the field of food chemistry with particular reference to the chemistry of food components, Maillard reaction, caramelisation and lipid oxidation. This will be supplemented with knowledge on the parameters that influence such reactions and the impact of processing and storage on the overall product quality.

You will learn about key theoretical concepts in analytical chemistry pertinent to quality control processes in a food manufacturing setting. Such concepts include physicochemical properties of food components as well as theoretical principles pertinent to food sampling, extraction, purification and determination using a series of analytical methodologies such as spectrophotometry, gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Theoretical concepts in data analysis will also be discussed and employed in IT workshops.

You will also learn and employ laboratory techniques in chemical analysis pertinent to the determination of macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates), as well as techniques related to the determination of compounds such as vitamins, sugars and fatty acids. During practical work you will look at the analytical methods used to identify and quantify such nutrients, providing a link to the understanding of food nutritional labelling.

You will gain insights in Good Laboratory Practice and Health and Safety pertinent to analytical laboratories, as well as the importance of Quality Assurance schemes employed in laboratories.

This module will develop your understanding of how microbes pervade the environment and impact the preparation, storage and safety of foods and drinks. You will explore the types of cellular microbes and their metabolism including yeast, filamentous fungi and bacteria. We will also consider the biology of non-cellular infectious agents such as viruses and prions and countermeasures required to prevent food-borne infection. You will explore the microbiology of the human digestive tract in health and disease and distinguish infection with food-borne pathogens from food-poisoning. Additionally, the value of microbes as probiotics will be explored. You will see the impact of culture conditions on food preservation and on laboratory-based tests for food safety. You will culture and qualitatively examine microbes to identify them and will also enumerate these in order to assess risk to human health or product quality. Additionally, you will also learn other quantitative techniques such as bioassays and estimations of microbial inactivation as in, for example, pasteurisation. You will consider the frequency and impact of endospore formation in relation to all of these aspects. Another important and exciting facet of the course will be the rapid detection of microbial products like DNA and antigens using modern molecular analyses rather than traditional culture-based methods.

In this module you will build upon the knowledge and skills you acquired during Fundamental Nutrition and you will also have the opportunity to develop your professional, research and practical skills as there is a strong emphasis on ‘hands-on’ nutrition.

Lectures during this module will include how you interpret and apply basic nutritional guidelines and policies to individuals and groups and the various roles that diet and nutrition can play in disease and in healthy ageing. The use of dietary surveys and epidemiological studies to identify links between diet and disease and how this evidence is used in nutritional guidance for the public and individuals will also be covered. You will become aware of the factors influencing dietary intake and barriers encountered when recommending dietary change.

You will learn about various laboratory techniques used in the nutrition research setting, as well having the opportunity to prepare and evaluate a planned diet for a particular individual determining its worth using your knowledge of dietary guidelines, individual requirements and in-depth dietary analysis skills. Further practical sessions will develop your research and data analysis skills using experimental data that you have gathered during laboratory and IT sessions.

The practical element of this module will help you to develop your critical evaluation skills and your self-awareness of the professional and research skills required to become a nutritionist.

Food science and human nutrition are predominantly practical subjects which require a hands on approach to the development of the essential research skills and methodology required for final year students, in particular the final year ‘capstone’ research project module.

In this module students will learn a lot about how research generally ‘works’ and is conducted and communicated within food science and human nutrition. The lectures and seminars on the module will introduce topics such as the research ‘heirarchy’, scientific communication and the presentation of research, academic integrity as a keystone in research and also different types of, and approaches to research undertaken within food and nutritional science, both quantitative and qualitative; However, the emphasis of the teaching and learning on this module is practical and most formal scheduled teaching is via workshops and practical classes, so that students will learn via hands on experience and develop a high level of competence.

Subjects will include [i] literature based research methods, so that students develop effective literature search strategies, to search, select and retrieve relevant academic information, and cite it appropriately in support of finding and conclusions [ii] quality assurance and critical reading, so that students can assess published information in terms of the likely validity and reliability of content [iii] constraints applying to the design of valid experiments, such as taking account of likely sources of error, appropriate risk and ethical assessment etc. to ensure quality of research and safety of both researcher and research subject(s) [iv] graphical and statistical approaches to the interpretation of scientific data and use of hypothesis-testing statistics to assess the significance of experimental results – use of SPSS statistical software [v] an introduction to qualitative methodology, such as survey design and focus grops/ interview techniques and the analysis of data.

This module will give students the opportunity to explore how research works and is communicated within food science and human nutrition, with an overall aim of developing students who are competent junior researchers.