For the first time, this singular and comprehensive text presents a focus on quantitative studies aiming to describe food digestion and the tools that are available for quantification. A case study relevant to real-world applications places this theoretical knowledge in context and demonstrates the different ways digestion studies can be used to develop food products. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food Digestion undertakes a multidisciplinary approach to food digestion studies, placing them in context and presenting relevant phenomena plus the challenges and limitations of different approaches. This book presents a unique, useful reference work to scientists, students, and researchers in the area of food science, engineering, and nutrition. Over the last two decades there has been an increasing demand for foods that deliver specific nutritional values. In addition, the dramatic increase of food related diseases such as obesity requires the development of novel food products that control satiety and glycemic response. Overall, digestion studies are gaining increasing attention in recent years, especially as the link between diet and health/well-being becomes more evident. However, digestion is a complex process involving a wide range of disciplines such as medicine, nutrition, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. While a significant body of work exists within each discipline, there is a lack of a multidisciplinary approach on the topic which will provide a holistic view of the process. With Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food Digestion, researchers are finally presented with this much needed approach.

"Infogest" (Improving Health Properties of Food by Sharing our Knowledge on the Digestive Process) is an EU COST action/network in the domain of Food and Agriculture that will last for 4 years from April 4, 2011. Infogest aims at building an open international network of institutes undertaking multidisciplinary basic research on food digestion gathering scientists from different origins (food scientists, gut physiologists, nutritionists...). The network gathers 70 partners from academia, corresponding to a total of 29 countries. The three main scientific goals are: Identify the beneficial food components released in the gut during digestion; Support the effect of beneficial food components on human health; Promote harmonization of currently used digestion models Infogest meetings highlighted the need for a publication that would provide researchers with an insight into the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of respective in vitro and ex vivo assays to evaluate the effects of foods and food bioactives on health. Such assays are particularly important in situations where a large number of foods/bioactives need to be screened rapidly and in a cost effective manner in order to ultimately identify lead foods/bioactives that can be the subject of in vivo assays. The book is an asset to researchers wishing to study the health benefits of their foods and food bioactives of interest and highlights which in vitro/ex vivo assays are of greatest relevance to their goals, what sort of outputs/data can be generated and, as noted above, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the various assays. It is also an important resource for undergraduate students in the 'food and health' arena.