A day in the life of... a food scientist

 

Armed with her ‘super peas’, Dr Katerina Petropoulou hopes to fight diabetes through stealthily replacing basic ingredients in some of our favourite foods.

The impact of diet on controlling our blood sugar levels has been known for decades. However, despite various public health campaigns, cases of diabetes continue to rise. Katerina is a nutritionist who believes science could do more to tackle this problem by imperceptibly replacing basic ingredients in our meals with super food alternatives.

In recent years Katerina and colleagues at Imperial’s Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction have been trialling the use of wrinkled peas. A cousin of the common garden variety, ground up wrinkled peas could replace white flour in various products to help us better control blood sugar levels and improve our gut microbiome health.

Join Katerina as she talks through the realities of feeding 25 volunteers with a month’s worth of pea-infused meals, racing around London with stool samples, and presenting her results in the Houses of Parliament. She will also be taking your questions on dietary science and the potential of food additives to address major public health challenges.