The research field of gastrointestinal structure engineering (GINSENG) denotes a new scientific con-cept, which shall be applied for industrial processing of functional food systems. Main focus is a pro-cess-based understanding of the digestive disintegration of food structure in the human gastroin-testinal tract. It addresses the mechanical, physiological, biochemical and medical aspects of digestion from mouth to colon to understand and optimize metabolic responses by derived tailored structure processing in the industrial manufacture of food.
Functional relationships between food structure, its industrial processing and disintegration during digestion are non linear. Further exploring related mechanistic aspects from a structure engineering perspec-tive has to take characteristic length and time scales into account.
The major section of the gastrointestinal human tract concerning absorption of micro- and macro-nutrients is the upper small intestine. Chyme transport from stomach through pylorus and duodenum is quite rapid thus giving only limited time for absorption of food components. Consequently the stomach has a major role preparing food structure for optimal nutrient transfer in the duodenum. This should be well considered in “structure-designed” fortified food systems, supplements or carriers containing functional components (FC). Depending on nutrient requirements differrent scenarios of structure transformation and FC-release within the stomach are derived. Two extremes are:
a) Fast stomach passage with residence time of 0.5-1h without significant structure breakup and FC-release.
b) Long residence time (8-24h) in stomach with controlled structure disintegration and specific FC-release kinetics.
In order to manage such different scenarios the (i) fluid mechanical (ii) biochemical and (iii) structu-ral/rheological material processing conditions within the stomach have to be quantified. In vitro experi-ments, fluid dynamical structure disintegration simulation (by CFD) as well as in vivo experimental validation are coupled in the related GINSENG approach, which includes the development of a new in vitro dynamic human stomach model (IVDHSM). The respective toolbox is demonstrated and results given for micronutrient release from fortified food systems.
