sponsored content

Lycored unites with top Japanese chef to inspire industry focus on “wise eating”

30 Oct 2018

Lycored has joined forces with Japanese “wise eating” campaigner Dr Yukio Hattori to encourage greater focus on wellness in the food industry.

Dr Hattori, President of the Hattori Nutrition College in Tokyo, is best known in Japan as a judge on the TV show, Iron Chef. He is also a long-standing advocate of Shoku-Iku – the concept of wise, or conscious, eating. His ideas influenced Japan’s Shoku-Iku law, which helps people practise healthy eating habits. For the past ten years, Dr Hattori acted as a Health Promotion Ambassador for the Japanese Government and he is currently spearheading an initiative to promote Shoku-Iku in the food industry. He is working actively with manufacturers, encouraging them to embrace wise eating practices in their own staff canteens, as well as in retail products.

Lycored unites with top Japanese chef to inspire industry focus on “wise eating”
Lycored has joined forces with Japanese “wise eating” campaigner Dr Yukio Hattori

As part of the campaign, Dr Hattori has teamed up with Lycored. His culinary team has developed new concepts showing how SANTE – Lycored’s natural, tomato-derived taste enhancer – can be used to create healthier versions of traditional recipes while enhancing flavour. The Hattori chef team demonstrates the potential to work with SANTE creatively, showcasing how it can be added at different stages of cooking, and how it can reduce soy, sugar, salt, and other less healthy ingredients. Examples include a fried rice dish that contains no added salt but retains its umami character thanks to the addition of SANTE at the cooking stage, a waifu sauce with reduced levels of soy and sake, and a Chinese Noodle dish that uses SANTE as an alternative to MSG. For producers in Japan, this may be timely ahead of possible regulatory changes requiring MSG content to be labelled more clearly. As well as traditional Chinese and Japanese dishes, the chefs have devised healthier versions of western dishes, including a risotto that uses SANTE to reduce cheese content by half. Christiane Lippert, Head of Marketing (Food) at Lycored, said: “The values of Shoku-Iku are relevant across the world and instilling them is the responsibility of food companies as well as governments. There’s always more that the industry could be doing and our aim is to push the needle further in the direction of wellness. Dr Hattori’s new concepts show that with a creative approach and the right ingredients it’s possible to achieve a genuine impact for consumers.” Dr Hattori is a doctor of medical science and has been awarded a Legion d’Honneur by the French government. His association with safe and healthy eating in Japan is such that a logo bearing his name is widely used as an indicator of product safety. About Lycored: Committed to ‘Cultivating Wellness’, Lycored, part of Adama Group, is an international company at the forefront of unearthing and combining nature’s nutrition potential with cutting edge science to develop natural ingredients and products. Established in 1995 in Israel, Lycored is the global leader in natural carotenoids for food, beverage and dietary supplement products. For more information visit www.lycored.com.