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Eat Your Veggies: The Right Amount Can Improve Mental Health and Happiness

Scientists Evaluate Potential Human Cannabinol Exposure from Consuming Meat if Cattle are Fed Hempseed Cake

The Nutrition of a Preterm Infant

Sorghum Bran Rises as an Ingredient for Enhancing Gluten-Free Bread

Eat Your Veggies: The Right Amount Can Improve Mental Health and Happiness

When healthy adults consume the daily amount of vegetable servings recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it has a positive effect on how happy the person feels, according to a study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. At the ARS Grand Forks (ND) Human Nutrition Research Center, an eight-week study evaluated the impact of increasing daily vegetable servings to match DGA recommendations on how happy one perceives themself to be, a key measurement of psychological well-being. Healthy men and women between 18 and 65 years old were divided into two groups, with one group receiving daily servings of DGA-recommended number and variety of vegetables, including dark green, red, and orange, and starchy vegetables, based on their energy needs during the course of the study. The vegetable servings were minimally processed (raw and diced). Increases in Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) scores were seen in participants from the group that followed the DGA recommendations for vegetable intake, while SHS scores stayed the same for the control group, who didn't change their diet.

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The Nutrition of a Preterm Infant

In the United States, more than one in 10 children are born preterm. One common risk for a preterm infant is their inability to be given food orally; preterm infants must be nourished intravenously by infusing purified nutrients such as glucose and amino acids directly into the blood. Many infants born prematurely are lighter, shorter, and have less muscle mass than infants born at term. This different body composition likely contributes to their increased risk of developing type two diabetes, obesity and glucose intolerance later in life. ARS studies using a preterm piglet model—the closest to the human system—suggest that the body’s ability to mount a growth response after feeding is reduced in the preterm infant. The food ingested doesn’t cause as profound an increase in the synthesis of protein in their muscles. So, they appear to be resistant to the simulation of protein synthesis by feeding. However, simply increasing the total food intake of preterm infants does not completely reverse their limited muscle growth. And excess catch-up growth can promote obesity. The researchers are now testing whether supplementing babies’ diet with additional leucine can promote muscle growth following preterm birth.

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New Assay Accelerates E. coli Testing Process

A new time-saving assay to detect E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef has been developed based on a modified phage—a virus that infects bacteria—that is specific to this type of E. coli by a team of scientists including ARS researchers. After infecting the pathogenic E. coli, the phage causes the bacteria to glow. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has maintained zero tolerance for E. coli O157:H7 since 1994. This means if even one cell of E. coli O157:H7 is detected in a standard 325-gram (11.4-ounce) sample of ground beef, the entire batch is flagged as unfit for human consumption. This zero-tolerance regulation requires a detection method that can find one cell in a sample. While methods to detect bacteria from foods are not nearly that sensitive, an “enrichment” step can be used to increase the number of E. coli O157:H7 cells to detectable levels. Enrichment involves the selective growth of E. coli O157:H7 in microbiological culture media for several hours, resulting in 10s of millions to 100s of millions of cells. For most food pathogen testing, meat samples are collected on the production floor and shipped overnight to testing labs before enrichment and detection. This new assay leverages the shipping time to simultaneously enrich the sample and detect E. coli, so the sample arrives at the lab with a tentative result. Not only does the method improve the time to result, it also is simple to perform, very specific, and inexpensive.

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E. coli bacteria.

Scientists Evaluate Potential Human Cannabinol Exposure from Consuming Meat if Cattle are Fed Hempseed Cake

Hempseed cake currently cannot legally be used in food animal rations because the magnitude of cannabinoid (Cannabidiol [CBD] and Tetrahydrocannabinol [THC]) residues remaining in edible animal tissues have not been characterized. To determine if hempseed cake could be safely used as a source of protein and fiber in cattle feed, ARS and North Dakota State University researchers recently evaluated cannabinoid residues (CBD, THC) in edible tissues of cattle that were fed hempseed cake. They fed groups of heifers a diet containing 20 percent hempseed cake for 111 days. When the feeding period was completed, cannabinoid residues in the liver, kidney, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue were measured in animals harvested 0, 1, 4 and 8 days after hempseed cake was removed from the diet to learn how quickly cannabinoids are cleared from tissues. Cannabinoid residues were sporadically detected in urine and plasma of cattle during the feeding period, and low levels (about 10 parts per billion) of CBD and THC combined were measured in adipose tissue of cattle harvested with no withdrawal period. In liver, kidney and skeletal muscle, CBD and THC were below detectable levels in the cattle fed hempseed cake. According to the exposure assessment, it would be very difficult for a human to consume enough fat from cattle fed with hempseed cake to exceed regulatory guidelines for dietary THC exposure. From a food safety viewpoint, hempseed cake having low cannabinoid content can be a suitable source of crude protein and fiber in cattle feed while offering industrial hemp producers a potential market for this byproduct of hempseed oil extraction.

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Hempseed.

Sorghum Bran Rises as an Ingredient for Enhancing Gluten-Free Bread

Sorghum bran, often a low-cost byproduct of sorghum milling, can enhance gluten-free bread's nutritional value without compromising its flavor or other characteristics, according to an ARS study published in the Journal of Food Science. Taste tests found people liked the gluten-free bread that contained 14.2 percent sumac sorghum bran and would be just as willing to buy such bread. There was no difference in perceived bitterness found between the bread with and without the sorghum bran.

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Bread containing sumac sorghum bran.