Toward the redesign of nutrition delivery

In the facilitation of widespread access to low-cost, good tasting food, the global food system has relied on the use of fat, sugar, chemical processing aids and plastics, among other elements potentially detrimental to human health and the environment. This contrasts starkly with the strategies of natural nutrition delivery systems. Rich in vitamins, minerals, and other substances of functional benefit to human health, natural delivery systems, such as fruits and vegetables, retain their physical and chemical stability in a range of conditions over relatively long times through protective skins and shells that can either be eaten or degrade rapidly and fully in nature. Frequently natural foods can be delivered in small (even extremely small) portions, as with berries, insects, plankton and krill, permitting portion control and the rapid and efficient delivery of functional nutrition in inherently mobile circumstances. These and other qualities, which have insured the sustainable and healthy nourishment of animals and humans for at least tens of thousands of years, are often absent from today's man-made food and beverage delivery systems. With growing awareness of the liabilities to maintaining the food system of today, efforts are now underway to redesign nutrition delivery so as to provide the contemporary benefits of global access while retrieving the health and environmental benefits associated with natural delivery systems. We review these here, with special attention to recently commercialized nutritional delivery systems emerging from the drug delivery field aimed at reducing waste in food and beverage (nutritional aerosols) and eliminating waste in food and beverage packaging (edible skins). We briefly discuss the potential ramifications to how we will eat tomorrow.