Collaborative Research 2
Interdisciplinary Studies of Food Science
The fruit of the FSC’s research,at the Exhibition in Tokyo, 2009

Contributing to Local Food Industry
Development withDisaster Foods and Rice
Niigata University Food Science Center

Food is a major industry in Niigata, an area rich inagriculturalandmarineresources.

Niigata

University has responded to local food industry needs
by pursuing original research across a number ofrelated fields. The results of research into “disasterfoods” and processed foods made from rice havecreated food technology with potential global andlocal benefits.

Motoni KadowakiFSC Director, Professor,
Department of Applied
Biological Chemistry, Facultyof Agriculture

Shinobu Fujimura
FSC Chief of the Secretariat,
Associate Professor,
Department of Applied
Biological Chemistry, Facultyof Agriculture

Masayuki Taniguchi
FSC Associate Director,Professor, Department ofMaterials Science andTechnology, Faculty ofEngineering

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Niigata University

Established as a campus-based independent entity in
2002, the Niigata University Food Science Center (FSC)
undertakes collaborative R&D with the food industry in
Niigata Prefecture, which is a major regional employer.
The FSC functions as an interdisciplinary research hub,with over 60 academics and researchers collaborating infields ranging from agriculture and engineering to medicine,dental science and education. It has already secured anumber of competitive industrial research grants from theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, the Japan Science and Technology Agency
and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It has
also opened its doors to the food industry to enable shareduse of the latest testing and analytical equipment, including
high-pressure devices, taste sensors, protein structure
analyzers and X-ray machines for studying ingested
substances.
The FSC’s Director is Professor Motoni Kadowaki. “Foodrelated issues are increasingly treated as social issues,” heexplains. “Besides self-sufficiency, they include food safety,
food and health, and dietary or nutritional education. We
can no longer hope to address all of these issues using
traditional knowledge and technology from agriculture. We
have to collaborate with many other fields. For example,
food science involves engineering, while the link between
food and health brings in medicine and dentistry. Cooking,diet and nutrition are issues linked to educational science.
Here at the FSC, we have assembled experts from a wide
range of fields to create a cross-functional academicorganization that is truly unique within Japan.”Self-heating Food for Disasters
The FSC undertakes a wide range of activities. It boasts
a dynamic program of seminars and research conferences
and hosts various lecture series on food science andtechnology. A special series of symposia on “disaster foods”
has attracted widespread praise from food manufacturers

APEC Press Tour in FSC, Niigata
University, 2010

Participants sample disaster foods, atFSC's symposium in Niigata, 2009and government institutions alike.
The first of these special symposia on disaster foods washeld in October 2005, a year after a major earthquake
struck the Niigata area. The FSC organized further special
symposia in September 2007, October 2009 and February
2010. These events analyzed information from studies of
the aftermath of both of the recent earthquakes in theNiigata region (in October 2004 and July 2007) as well as
the earthquake that struck Kobe in January 1995. For the
first time, the symposia seriously addressed what sorts offoods are required in emergency and disaster relief
situations, sparking a debate about “disaster foods.” The
FSC compiled the knowledge garnered from these events
into a book entitled “The Future of Emergency and DisasterFoods,” which is now in its third publication. In addition,
based on the symposium discussions and working incollaboration with the FSC, local food manufacturers havedeveloped a range of long-life disaster foodstuffs that aredelicious and easy to prepare. These products are now onsale and fill a significant gap in the disaster preparedness
market. They have attracted praise from the Japanesegovernment and from overseas, generating a stream ofrequests to the FSC for samples.
“Today we are able to provide people in disaster areas
with delicious hot meals such as curry rice or beef on rice.
These products heat themselves without the need for heator water,” comments Associate Professor Shinobu Fujimura,
who heads up the administrative section of the FSC.

Developing Special Foods for theSwallowing-impaired or Seniors
in Nursing Care
Besides disaster relief, in recent years the FSC has
become involved in addressing the issue of feeding elderly
people and the disabled in care and those with swallowing
impairments.
Traditional medical approaches to swallowing impairment
involve feeding patients by tube or other non-oral ingestion
methods. The avoidance of eating meals has a significantly
negative impact on the quality of life of such patients. Basedon correct diagnosis of problems with swallowing, the goalof the FSC’s research in this area is to supplement

rehabilitation by enabling patients in care to eat safe, tasty
meals.

Developing New Types of Functional Rice andRelated Products
The FSC also undertakes specific research whencommissioned by corporate clients. The center aims toprovide companies with a “one-stop service” by matching
resident researchers to specific themes to create targeted
joint research projects.
The FSC specializes in rice-related research, reflecting
the top domestic position of the Niigata region in terms ofrice cultivation. A number of future-oriented research
projects with rice-based themes are ongoing, divided into
the five main topics. Examples of specific research topics
include: the ameliorative effect of compounds derived fromrice endosperm or rice bran protein in diabetic nephropathy;
the bactericidal use of rice-derived peptides in tacklingperiodontal disease; use of taste sensors to evaluate highquality sake from Niigata and related new productapplications; development of new powdered rice products
and related distribution technology for frozen products; andthe development of a food menu based on rice powder foreasy home cooking by students. Niigata University isdeveloping these rice-related research activities as a
general interdisciplinary field across the university.
Professor Masayuki Taniguchi, the deputy head of theFSC, explains that rice has a multitude of uses for possible
investigation. “Besides creating delicious rice products, weare also seeking to expand the functional applicability ofrice in medical and dietary fields. Japanese people tend to
miss not eating rice, but we do not widely appreciate that it
can also help to reduce the effects of diabetes. Projects
have looked at putting rice into processed animal feeds.”
Food is a global issue. Rice is a staple food not only inJapan, but also across the entire region of East Asia. “FSC’sactivities with rice will gain increasing attention fromoverseas in the future,” says Professor Kadowaki. “We hopeto develop the FSC as an international center for researchby accepting more students from overseas and by actively
pursuing joint research programs with researchers fromaround the world.”

Niigata University35