Food scientists are hoping for big things from small particles

Nanotechnology, the buzzword used to describe science conducted at the molecular or atomic level, doesn’t usually come up when people discuss cooking. But interest is growing in manipulating matter at a scale one-1,000th the width of a human hair to make food healthier, tastier, and safer.

Such work is far from the supermarket shelf, but experiments are underway in labs around the world, with scientists searching for techniques that could help to deliver a delicate vitamin to a specific part of the digestive tract or create droplets of fat that aren’t bad for you.

“You make a food that looks and tastes like a regular food. Same fat content, same viscosity, same mouth-feel, but you wrap all the fat in a dietary fiber coating so it goes out the other end - without being digested,’’ said David Julian McClements, a food scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, describing one potential project.

Currently, McClements is trying to devise a way to make a potentially beneficial ingredient more palat able and effective in reaching specific parts of the body. For example, butyric acid, a natural ingredient found in milk, is interesting because of its potential anticancer properties on the colon. But two big problems exist: It is normally absorbed before it reaches the colon, and it smells like baby throw-up, he said.

So McClements, supported by grants from the US Department of Agriculture and UMass, is working to encapsulate the acid in a fiber coating that will allow it to travel intact to the large intestine - without spoiling the taste or smell of food. There, the body would break down the fiber coating and release the acid into the area where it is thought to be helpful.

Another project his laboratory is focused on is encapsulating omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to have health benefits but spoil easily. McClements is working to safely store omega-3 fatty acids in tiny particles that would allow them to be integrated into a food or beverage - even a dessert.

Jeffrey Barach, vice president of science policy at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said that nanotechnology research is focused on everything from better packaging, to making food last longer, to cutting salt and fat content without changing the taste. But the first applications for food ingredients likely to emerge, he said, are technologies that enhance foods by adding nutrients, antioxidants, or even flavors.

“A lot of these applications being talked about are in research and development,’’ Barach said. But people also are examining potential safety concerns at this early stage, because miniaturizing materials holds tremendous promise but also creates new worries. Tiny particles may behave in unexpectedly negative ways, or have toxic properties.

“Our main position is that we believe more environmental health and safety studies need to be done on these types of products,’’ said Todd Kuiken, a research associate at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, an initiative launched by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts. “We want to see this technology progress safely.’’

Mitchell Cheeseman, deputy director for the office of food additive safety at the US Food and Drug Administration, said the earliest applications of nanotechnology are likely to be in packaging. For example, nano-sized particles could one day be integrated into soda bottles to improve the shelf-life of carbonated beverages.

Nanotechnology “certainly has the potential for improving health, both in food products and in medical products, so it’s of great interest to us and we are spending a good bit of energy and resources in developing guidance and in developing our research program,’’ Cheeseman said. He added that oversight of food differs in a critical way from that for medicines. Drugs’ risks are considered along with their benefits; whereas with food, there is a uniform safety standard, regardless of benefits.

Even with such benefits on the horizon, food and nanotechnology already are stirring public interest - and sparking scientific imagination.

David Weitz, a Harvard physicist, works on a slightly larger scale - trying to make complex emulsions, or mixtures of materials. He envisioned the day a milkshake might not be a dieter’s downfall.

“You could imagine using multiple emulsions: take the fats that add flavor to the milkshake, and structure them in a way they don’t have as much fat,’’ Weitz said. “You could add something that adds some health benefit.’’

Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.