Fred Brouns
About him:
Prof Dr. Fred Brouns obtained a PhD at Maastricht University in the Netherlands for his nutrition physiology research “Food and Fluid Related Aspects in Highly Trained athletes” For this research he was awarded the Dutch Sports Medicine Award. Fred has >25 years experience in the field of life sciences and health nutrition, headed international R&D functions in the area of Nutrition and Health/Nourishing the World, at Wander Dietetics, Sandoz Nutrition, Novartis Nutrition, Eridania Beghin Say, Cerestar and Cargill Inc. He chaired various food and nutrition expert panels at the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe, Brussels and at IDACE, Paris. Fred became invited member of the British Nutrition Society and is a registered Biomedical Researcher as well as board member (2008-2012) of the Dutch Academy of Nutritional Sciences. He obtained fellowships of the American College of Sports Medicine and the European College of Sports Sciences, published extensively and is a frequent global educator and speaker in the field of Life Sciences and Nutrition.
From 2008- 2015 he held a full chair “Health Food Innovation” at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life and Sciences, within School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM), Maastricht University. His current main interest is on vitality and physical function in health and disease, related to aspects of plant bio-actives, sugars, carbohydrates and dietary fibers as well as whole grain, cereals and gluten. Recently he was awarded the “Year 2015 Fellow of the ICC-“ International Association of Cereal Science and Technology, He published > 300 science papers and presented > 200 key-note lectures world wide.
About his contribution:
"Needs for a mandatory fibre content listing in the Nutrition Facts Label: Plenary Panel discussion"
The nutrition facts label has been put in place to help consumers make well-informed healthy food choices. The label lists the macronutrients with an additional spilt down to highlight desired and less/undesired components. Examples: Total Fat: (of which) saturated and trans fat content, both in grams and %. Total Carbohydrate: (of which) total sugars and added sugars, also both in grams and %. With respect to carbohydrates new proposals have been made to list also the content of “added sugars” because of their negative health impact.
Along similar lines one could argue that for optimal consumer information (total fibres, of which added fibres) should favourable be listed because of their positive health effects. Ideally, reductions of free/added sugars and increase of fibre content should ideally go hand in hand. If not, an exchange of sugars for fats may take place resulting in increased caloric content. It is to be expected that a mandatory listing of total and added fibre content will help drive healthy product reformulations on the one hand en support healthy consumer choices on the other hand. To set the scene for this interactive panel discussion, three 5 minutes pitches will be given, followed by questions and answers:
1. Prof Fred Brouns, Maastricht University: Introduction to the theme.
2. Dr. Danielle Wolvers, Dutch Nutrition Centre: “Making the healthy choice: will fibre listing help?”
3. Dr. Barry McCleary- Megazyme, Bray- County Wicklow, Ireland: Is quantification of total and added fibres practical enough to make it mandatory?
4. 20 minutes interactive plenary discussion.