Introduction and Background Aventure AB has created a "between-meal beverage" with high protein and energy content aimed at older and/or physically active individuals. Aventure AB wished to transform this high energy drink to a plant-based product, because of the growing trend of plant-based diets. Aim The aim of this project was to replace the protein source in the beverage ”Skaka & smaka - strawberry taste”, while maintaining good flavour and texture. The original beverage contains whey protein, which was to be replaced with a vegetable source. Materials and methods A new plant-based beverage was developed from the original recipe. Four different alternative protein sources were added and evaluated with regard to taste, visual look, pH, dry matter, viscosity, brix, protein and energy content. To beverages based on different protein sources, four different juice concentrates were added in varying combinations and concentrations. Aromas were also added and a change of the fruit-purée recipe was made. The salt concentration was modified. The final product was evaluated through a consumer sensory analysis at a sports centre in Lund. The participants were asked to judge it by first impression, colour, odour, flavour, texture and overall impression on a 9-point hedonic scale. 76 individuals participated and compared the original beverage with the new plant-based one. Results and Discussion A beverage containing pea protein with a combination of a new fruit purée with a reduced amount of strawberries but an increased amount of bananas was selected as the most promising candidate. Further improvement of this beverage included addition of a juice concentrate mixture (6 mL/100 g), containing 50 % apple concentrate + 50 % lime concentrate. The salt content in the beverage was 0.03 g salt/100 g beverage. The sensory analysis revealed a significant difference regarding the first impression and flavour in favour of the original beverage, while a significant difference in colour appeared in favour of the new one containing pea protein. 19.6 % of the participating women, and 22.5 % of the men claimed that they would buy the new plant-based beverage. Conclusion A plant-based version of Skaka & smaka has been developed, and the sensory analysis indicates that the new product has potential on today's market. However, the beverage requires further development to satisfy all the needs within the target group.

Inspired by the sudden recent incline in and awareness of veganism as well as my own personal involvement in such matters, I sought out to complete an empirical analysis to study the impact of consumer preferences. Originally intrigued by the consumption of meat and its impact on developing countries, I opted for a related topic with better accompanying data. Consumer preferences change regularly with an increasing plethora of reasons behind their decisions. As the guiding force of the demand side of the market, it was vital to study the impact of their choices. My decision to use plant-based milk was meant to be a proxy for consumers who could not consume dairy. To my surprise, the force behind the increase in plant-based milk consumption was not propelled by those with alternative lifestyles but regular consumers who wanted healthier and better-tasting options. Further analysis has led me to look past consumers themselves and their individual choices to identify the impacts of their choices. This required an intricate look into the United States dairy industry and its composition. What is recorded within the next 45 pages is a delicate web of outcomes spun by the needs of consumers. It branches out into the lives of small dairy farmers who cannot compete with larger farms. It spins out to form a massive web of increasing profit for the plant-based milk industry. It creates a loss in the whole milk sector of the dairy industry only to be filled by the organic and specialty sectors. While they can be guided into choices through various forms of advertisement, the world has changed since the introduction of modern economics, and consumers are learning to utilize the products that fit their lifestyles. Gone are the days of passive consumption and food pyramids. Information has never been as readily available as it is today, with the help of the internet and independent researchers, and consumers have chosen to use this to their advantage.

Lifestyle medicine is the use of lifestyle interventions in the prevention, treatment and management of disease. A faith-based community, which is the subject of much health lifestyle research, is the focus of this study. The Seventh-day Adventist church has promoted a healthy lifestyle, including a plant-based diet, since its foundation in 1863. Research shows that Adventists are much healthier and live significantly longer than the general population. Adventist vegetarians are even more healthy, and live about five years longer than non-vegetarians. The present study was designed to investigate how church leaders relate to the Adventist health lifestyle, and to what extent information about the benefits of adopting this lifestyle is communicated to church members in Sweden. Survey interviews with specific health-related lifestyle questions were used to collect the data. 60% of the respondents reported being vegetarian or vegan. Many agreed that pastors should be health educators as much as gospel preachers, but a majority did not have any academic or other education on health. Only a minority stated that they often preach or share the Adventist health message, but most respondents agreed that every church should be a school of health. The educational program for pastors and other church leaders should include adequate training and experience in health and lifestyle medicine from a faith-based perspective. Seventh-day Adventists should be the first to take full advantage of an evidence-based healthy lifestyle and live as examples to others.

Kentucky has a health crisis and most of the causes can be linked to diet, smoking and physical activity. Vegetarian and vegan diets have numerous benefits for many diet related health problems such as obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. There has been limited research on vegetarians and vegans in the United States and none in Kentucky. This study used an anonymous electronic survey to examine the different characteristics, behaviors, experiences and opinions of adult vegetarians and vegans in Kentucky. Results were compared to statistical data reported on the general population of Kentucky. Calculated body mass index (BMI) from self-reported height and weight showed 36% of vegetarians and 21% of vegans to be overweight or obese compared to 67% of the general Kentucky population being overweight or obese. The impact on BMI due to type of plant based diet (vegetarian or vegan) was found to be of greater significance (p=0.0030) than that of exercise. Reports from both groups indicated that they may be underserved by health care professionals. These findings have important implications for dietitians, dietetics education programs and health care providers concerned with high rates of obesity and chronic diseases.

Replacement of fish meal as the primary protein source in diets for farmed carnivorous fish is a major priority for sustainability of the aquaculture industry. Three plant-based protein sources (soybeans, field peas, and canola) were investigated to compare their effects on the health and performance of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and to identify significant anti-nutritional factors (ANFs). Six separate 8-week studies were conducted, over a period of one year, to assess the effects of protein source and processing level (meal versus protein concentrate) at dietary inclusion rates of 0 to 300 g kg-1. Abundance of inflammatory and immune marker transcripts including proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), immunoglobulin M (IgM), interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) was evaluated in distal intestinal tissue by quantitative PCR (qPCR) analysis. Activity of the pro-apoptotic enzyme caspase-3 was also assayed in distal intestinal tissue. Transcript abundance was highly variable and no suitable genes for the internal normalization of qPCR data could be identified. As a result, transcript copy numbers were reported per 50 ng of total RNA. At 300 g kg-1 inclusion, soybean meal (SBM) increased abundance of IL-8 and IgM, pea meal (PM) increased abundance of IL-10, and canola protein concentrate (CPC) increased abundance of IL-8. Pea protein concentrate (PPC) reduced IL-8 abundance and caspase-3 activity, while increasing abundance of IL-10. Canola meal (CM) and soy protein concentrate (SPC) did not significantly affect the transcript abundance of any assayed gene. Pearson correlation coefficients were determined between gene transcript abundance, performance parameters, protein source, inclusion level, and ANF content. Specific growth rate (SGR) was negatively correlated with the abundance of IL-1β and IgM. Dietary inclusion of SBM was positively correlated with all assayed proinflammatory markers and negatively correlated with SGR. Inclusion of PM was positively correlated with both SGR and the abundance of IL-10. The inclusion of CM was negatively correlated with average daily feed intake (ADFI) and with the abundance of both IL-8 and PCNA. Inclusion of PPC correlated positively with SGR and negatively with the activity of caspase-3. Correlation between transcript abundance and dietary content of putative ANFs suggested negative correlations between glucosinolate content, proinflammatory cytokine expression, SGR, and ADFI; whereas, isoflavone content was positively correlated with proinflammatory markers and negatively correlated with SGR. In conclusion, although high SBM and CM inclusion levels have been associated with reduced growth performance in trout, only SBM was associated with increased abundance of inflammatory marker transcripts. These contrasting responses may be mediated by CM glucosinolates, which could negatively affect palatability without inducing a pro-inflammatory response. Dietary PM was very well tolerated and may have promoted anti-inflammatory activity. Further processing of protein meals to concentrates markedly reduced any observable negative impact on performance parameters and the abundance of inflammatory marker mRNA transcripts. Interestingly, both PM and PPC were positively correlated with SGR and may contain a beneficial anti-inflammatory component.

According to the latest facts and figures from the Centers for Disease Control, the prevalence of obesity and Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) across all demographics is escalating worldwide. Among the range of drugs used to treat diabetes there is an interest in treatment options that are derived from more traditional methods, outside of the customarily synthetic and pharmaceutically sourced treatment options. Amid treatment alternatives that are more traditional in origin are a category of compounds called natural products. The natural products of interest are either plant based extracts or specific organic compounds extracted from the natural product. Over the last decade, plant based natural products have been increasingly shown to provide an alternative and supplementary course of treatment for diabetic patients suffering from systemic inflammation and insulin resistance in model systems of metabolic disease. However, information for many natural products is limited to small studies with mixed outcomes and information on human models systems remains limited in scope. In this thesis the most potent therapeutic natural products were evaluated by conducting a thorough literature review and subsequently studying the most promising candidates by characterizing their metabolic effects on human adipocytes. In order to identify the most potent plant based natural products we will use cultured human adipocytes as a model system. Free-fatty acids (FFA) and cytokines including Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α), have been demonstrated to impair fat metabolism and reduce insulin signaling. Therefore, we will study the protective effect of prominent and potentially beneficial natural compounds, based on comprehensive literature reviews, to assess their effect on FFA metabolism using glycerol release as a measure of lipolysis, cytokine induced lipolysis as a measure of natural product protection against inflammation, and impaired AKT-phosphorylation as a measure of insulin signaling function. Observations gathered concluded that the application of bitter melon, fenugreek, and ginseng plant extracts reduced lipolysis in a dose dependent manner, limited the effects of TNF-α induced lipolysis, and fenugreek and ginseng displayed pro-apoptotic cellular programs.

abstract: Multiple health-related benefits have been associated with adherence to plant-based diets, including vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian dietary patterns. Despite a consistent body of evidence on the importance of healthy diets, Americans continue to find difficulty in establishing and adhering to dietary goals that could elicit long-term health benefits. Recent research suggests an important role for goal-setting strategies in health behavior change attempts, with some success shown in dietary behavior change, specifically. The current study thus aimed to explore whether having multiple goals alongside one primary goal of following a vegetarian, vegan, or pescatarian diet would increase the achievability of that goal. Participants of this study were broken into two groups: currently following a plant-based diet (ADHERE) and striving to follow a plant-based diet (STRIVE). Researchers hypothesized that the number of health and/or diet related alternative goals set by participants would differ between the two groups, that the ADHERE group would report that their alternative goals were more helpful and less interfering in achieving their dietary goal than the STRIVE group, and that a higher rank of importance of the dietary goal would predict being in the ADHERE group. Results showed that the number of health and/or diet related alternative goals did not differ between groups. The ADHERE group and STRIVE group did not have significantly different helpfulness and interference reports. Although, in an exploratory analysis, it was shown that those participants who reported at least 2 health/diet related alternative goals found those goals to be significantly more helpful than those who reported 0 or 1 health/diet goal. Results showed that rank of dietary goal did not predict group assignment. Overall, the results from this study showed that the type of alternative goal was very important when pursuit of multiple goals was in effect. Type of alternative goal seemed to be a higher predictor of the perceived helpfulness of the alternative goals than previous achievement of goals. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Nutrition 2018

abstract: In 2002, a scientifically derived food guide pyramid for vegetarians, the Modified Food Guide for Lacto-ovo-vegetarians and Vegans was published and well received. Now that 10 years have passed, new scientific literature regarding the bioavailability of the nutrients of key concern in vegetarian diets has been published, and the graphical format of the nation's food guide has evolved from a pyramid shape into a circular plate. The objective of this research was to examine the post-2002 literature regarding the bioavailability of key nutrients in vegetarian diets; to use this information to update the recommendations made in the 2002 Modified Food Guide Pyramid for Lacto-ovo-vegetarians and Vegans; and to adapt this revised food plan to the new USDA MyPlate format. This process involved reviewing the scientific literature to determine if the DRIs for the nutrients of key concern in vegetarian diets are adequate for the vegetarian population and using this information to develop new recommendations for vegetarians if necessary, analyzing the nutrient content of representative foods in different food groups, reconfiguring the food groups so that foods with like nutrient components were grouped together, determining the number of servings of each food group required to meet vegetarians' nutrient requirements at three caloric levels, and developing sample menus. A circular plate graphic, the Vegetarian Plate, was designed to illustrate the recommendations of this updated food guide. This updated, scientifically derived food guide provides a sound base for diet planning for lacto-ovo-vegetarians and vegans. Further research is needed to assess the Vegetarian Plate's adequacy for children, pregnant and lactating women, athletes, and individuals with medical conditions or chronic diseases. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Nutrition 2013

The suitability of a plant-based transient expression system using the agro-infiltration technique was compared to an Escherichia coli (E. coli)-based expression system to produce the VP1 protein from Serotype O, South Korean strain, of the foot-and mouth disease virus (FMDV). The full-length VP1 coding sequence was expressed in Escherichia coli as a fusion protein and purified as a His-tagged VP1 fusion protein with a yield of 14 mg L-1 bacterial culture. For transient expression in tobacco, the VP1 coding sequence was cloned into binary vector pMYV497, containing a CTB (cholera toxin B subunit) signal peptide and SEKDEL ER retention signal, and transiently agro-infiltrated into non-transgenic N. benthamiana and transgenic N. tabacum plants constitutively expressing the rice cysteine protease inhibitor OC-I. A protein resembling VP1 was detected using immuno-blotting analysis in both N. benthamiana and OC-I N. tabacum plants seven days post agro-infiltration. Although a possible stabilizing effect on VP1 was found due to OC-I expression, protein yields were not significantly different between transformed OC-I and non-OC-I control plants. Also, simultaneous co-infiltration with a plasmid allowing additional transient OC-I expression did not significantly improve VP1 production. The average VP1 amount achieved in OC-I expressing plants was 0.75% of total soluble protein. Overall, this study has shown that transient VP1 expression in tobacco is possible, but requiring further optimization, and that OC-I might have a stabilizing effect against proteolytic degradation of VP1 during advanced stages of senescence in agro-infiltrated plants coinciding with peaks in protein expression. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur manliga veganer uppfattar sin maskulinitet i relation till att de utesluter animalier från sin kost. Genom åtta kvalitativa djupintervjuer med män som äter en växtbaserad kost ville jag få svar på frågeställningarna: Upplever manliga veganer att det finns en koppling mellan maskulinitet och köttkonsumtion? Hur tar sig i så fall denna koppling uttryck? Och anser manliga veganer att deras kostval påverkar deras sociala interaktioner med köttätare och hur förklarar samt förhåller de sig i så fall till detta? Ett tematiskt analysförfarande användes som metod för att analysera insamlad data. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna för denna studie var Judith Butlers uppfattning om kön och att det är något som formuleras i sociala processer och R. W. Connells teori om hegemonisk maskulinitet och att det manliga könet är dominerande över det kvinnliga. Att vara kvinna i dagens samhälle upplevs som något sekundärt och den kost som associeras med det kvinnliga könet ses i förlängningen också som sekundär. Studien tillämpar också Carol J. Adams teori om att köttkonsumtion är associerat med män och maskulinitet. Resultatet visar att manliga veganer upplever att det finns en koppling mellan maskulinitet och köttkonsumtion, även om de själva inte upplever att det behöver vara så. Uppfattningen att köttkonsumtion är associerat med maskulinitet yttrar sig genom att det finns en indikation på att inte vilja uppfattas som en stereotypisk vegan. På så sätt vidhålls uppfattningen om den hegemoniska mannen, trots att de i själva verket tar avstånd från den. / The purpose of this study was to investigate how male vegans perceive their masculinity in relation to excluding animal products from their diet. Through eight qualitative in-depth interviews with men who eat a plant-based diet I wanted to get answers to the questions: Do male vegans feel that there is a connection between masculinity and meat consumption? If so, how does this connection manifest itself? And do male vegans believe that their dietary choices affect their social interactions with carnivores and how do they explain and relate to this in that case? A thematic analysis method was used for analyzing collected data. The theoretical starting points for this study were Judith Butler’s view of gender and that it is something that is formulated in social processes and R. W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and that the male sex is dominant over female. Being a woman in today’s societyis perceived as something secondary and the diet associated with the female gender is in extension also seen as secondary. The study also applies Carol J. Adams theory that meat consumption is associated with men and masculinity. The results show that male vegans feel that there is a connection between masculinity and meat consumption, even though they themselves do not feel that it needs to be so. The perception that meat consumption is associated with masculinity is expressed by the fact that there is an indication of not wanting to be perceived as a stereotypical vegan. In this way, the perception of the hegemonic man is maintained, even though they are in fact distancing themselves from it.