The Profession of Nutrition vs The Role of Food Scientist in Research and in Industry

 

Following my article on:

The Medical Doctor vs The Medical Scientist in Medical Advances and Recognition here:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-medical-doctor-vs-medical-scientist.html

I decided to write a similar comparison between a Nutritionist vs the Nutrition Scientist in Nutrition Advances and their Recognition as all these areas are well within my training and professional experience.

But first, let us look very briefly at the history of human nutrition which is probably younger than medicine.  

The history of nutrition dates back to the dawn of humanity. Diet was largely determined by the availability and palatability of foods, and the teachings and techniques that were used to obtain and prepare food came from trial and error, and an incredible capacity of human inventiveness. “Thou should eat to live; not live to eat” is a saying attributed to Socrates. Hippocrates of Kos was among the first to establish the role of diet. He proposed lifestyle modifications, such as diet and exercise, to treat diseases, and is therefore often quoted with “let food be your medicine.” And yet, there is hardly another field with so much prejudice, misconception, and debate as diet and health, let alone hair health. In his publication “How Doctors Think,” Jerome Groopman ultimately states that “Aside from relatively common dietary deficiencies—lack of vitamin B12 causing pernicious anaemia, or insufficient vitamin C giving rise to scurvy—little is known about the effects of nutrition on many bodily functions.” The fact is that quantity and quality of hair are closely related to the nutritional state of an individual. Before 1785 many scholars had published their opinions on how food was used in our bodies, but it was only with the “Chemical Revolution” in France at the end of the eighteenth century, with its identification of the main elements and the development of methods of chemical analysis, that old and new ideas began to be tested in a quantitative, scientific way. Essential studies into the chemical nature of foods followed. Following the groundbreaking observations of naval physicians James Lind from the British Navy and Kanehiro Takaki from the Japanese Navy on what was to later be discovered to be vitamin C and vitamin B1, further research followed into the area of the vitamins. All vitamins were identified between 1913 and 1948, ushering in a half century of discovery focused on single-nutrient-deficiency diseases. Accelerating economic development and modernization of agricultural, food processing, and food formulation techniques globally reduced single-nutrient-deficiency diseases. In response, nutrition science shifted to the research on the role of nutrition in complex noncommunicable chronic diseases. Among the most important scientific developments of recent decades are the design and completion of multiple, complementary, large nutrition studies, including prospective observational cohorts, and randomized clinical trials.

(Source: Ralph M. Trüeb).

A brief history of nutrition is also given here:

https://www.naturalhealers.com/blog/nutrition-history/

Today, the study of nutrition is a very broad-based profession. It was first established by Professor John Yudkin who was the first Chair of Nutrition in Queen Elizabeth College (QEC), University of London. QEC was the women’s wing of King’s College London

King’s Department of Nutrition & Dietetics was established in 1945 as the first university department of nutrition in Europe. King’s has played a key part in establishing nutrition as an academic subject and encouraging public interest in the food we eat and its effect on our health.

Pioneering nutritionists associated with King’s include Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for the discovery of vitamins; John Yudkin, the first professor of nutrition in Britain, who established the first university department to teach nutrition at undergraduate level, and Robert McCance and Elsie Widdowson FRS, joint authors of The Chemical Composition of Foods, commonly referred to as ‘the nutritionist’s bible’.

Today the work undertaken in the department continues to explore the effect of food on the body in health and disease. Research falls into three main areas: public health, the molecular basis of nutrition and eating disorders.

Pioneers in nutrition and dietetics were eminent scientists, doctors and nutritionists at King’s College London and its associated hospitals have links to the earliest forerunners of the discipline. They include:

• Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861 – 1947)
• Dr. Cicely Williams (1893 – 1992)
• Professor Robert McCance (1898 –1993)
• Professor Elsie Widdowson FRS (1906 – 2000)
• Professor John Yudkin (1910 – 1995)

A lot of people including doctors and so-called ‘nutritionists’ who are unqualified and health freaks think that nutrition is the study of what food is healthy and which are unhealthy to eat and what foods can cause cancer? That's all they know and can think of.

They have no clue at all what is taught in a university offering a 4-year structural course in nutrition. I cannot speak for all universities whose curriculum in nutrition varies from university to university.

 I can only speak on behalf of the University of London that started offering a 4-year bachelor’s degree course and also a Post-graduate Diploma course in Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College (King’s College London) together at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, both establishments are part of the University of London.

At QEC (Queen Elizabeth College) then, as far as I know an undergraduate programme in nutrition, a student has to learn all the basic sciences such as chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, food chemistry, food analysis, microbiology, just like a medical student would learn in their first two preclinical year.

In the remaining 3 and 4^th year he learns other areas of nutrition such as clinical or medical nutrition where he learns basic principles of medicine, the diagnosis of nutritional deficiency diseases, food science, food consumption surveys, food balance sheet, food taboos and food belief, food cultures associated with traditions and religions around the world, sociology and economics, soil science, agriculture and food production.

By the time he graduates as a nutritionist he becomes an ‘expert’ in a bit of everything like a medical graduate who is also a ‘jack of all trades’ in general medicine. However, unlike a medical doctor, a nutritionist trained in a good prestigious university like at QEC, they know far more on clinical nutrition than a medical doctor.  

He is able to diagnose nutritional deficiency diseases far more and expertly than a medical doctor, at least this was what was taught at QEC and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. At both these colleges of the University of London this was taught, but I have no knowledge of what is now taught in other universities offering courses in nutrition.

A nutritionist who graduated from the University of London where I was in the mid 1960's is really very,  very well-trained in this area of medicine and no doctor in general medicine has that expertise than a qualified nutritionist. Again, this depends on where the nutritionist was trained.

Today, a nutritionist and a dietician are both registered and licenced professionals just like in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and in other health-care professionals. 

In Malaysia as in most countries today, unlike in the 1990’s the professional title “nutritionist” is protected by law. Not anyone unqualified, unregistered and unlicensed can call themselves a nutritionist.

Thirty years ago, anyone who worked in a health company selling health foods and food supplements could call themselves a ‘nutritionist’ after one week of “training” by any unqualified person in a hotel. But no more. The titles “nutritionist” and “dietician” though they work differently are protected under the Allied Health Professions Act 2016.  

Dieticians work mainly in hospitals formulating and prescribing appropriate diets for patients requiring specific diets just like a doctor does prescribing drugs and medicines instead of diets. Generally, nutritionists do not work with sick patients requiring specific tailored diets but more on healthy populations for the prevention of diseases. They find employment with the Ministry of Health and large organizations such as FAO and WHO and also in food and health companies or are self-employed. I have known of nutritionists working in very high managerial and executive positions in pharmaceutical producing companies and are far more well-paid than doctors and pharmacists.

But I have also seen nutritionists working in private hospitals as Consultant Nutritionists alongside their dietician colleagues. It all depends on the requirements of the employers; each has their specific needs. 

Some nutritionists because of their broad-based training in other areas of food and medical sciences have also found employment in the food industry where they work alongside food scientists, food technologists, food engineers, food quality controllers, food chemists and food microbiologists which are all different fields but related to food.

Unfortunately, often the nutritionist who tries to promote health-protective foods are at loggerheads with the food scientists and food manufactures who add all kinds of food additives, food preservatives, colouring substances, food flavours into their manufactured foods much to the chagrin of the nutritionist.

But at the same time food production also necessitates the use of pesticides, weedicides, fertilizers and food preservatives for mass production and long-term storage for distribution to the markets to feed the growing population. 

Although nutritionists do not advocate the so-called “organic foods” at least safe and wholesome nutritious foods, they must also sympathise with the food scientist, food technologist and food manufacturers because they need to preserve food for distribution and sales. If they are not allowed to use food additives, then food cannot be stored for a long time. How then can food be handled  for a longer time before distribution?

Food science, though a different field from nutrition or dietetics, uses basic science and applied science of food, such as food chemistry, food microbiology, food technology, and food engineering, agricultural science and nutritional science, food production, food safety and food processing, for the commercial production of foods.

Food is obviously the most important requirement in our everyday life, serving as fuel and nourishment for our bodies for day-to-day physical activities. Without food death ensures fairly rapidly depending on our nutritional status and body food reserves.

The food industry is also a billion-dollar industry where manufacturers never stop innovating the type and flavour of food.

In order to achieve the goals of food innovation, the world needs more food science graduates than any other trades and profession.  The food industry has limitless potential waiting to be discovered.

Food science includes food technology that covers most aspects of food at every level, from the production process to packaging technology. For instance, subjects taught in food science commonly cover food chemistry, human nutrition, microbiology, food biochemistry, food product development and innovation (R&D), food analytical chemistry, food quality control and food safety, food production, statistics, food processing, preservation, handling and storage, among many others. But they are not as experts as nutritionists in dealing with food, health, disease and nutrition.

Some universities offering food science and food technology may require students undergoing compulsory industrial training or internships as part of the university’s degree programme. This is for students to obtain practical work experience, which can equip the student to better understand and apply what they have learnt in a university.

The same applies to a student studying nutrition in a good university where they are exposed to field work in nutrition surveys and assigned to hospitals to study the effects of under or over nutrition and their outcome.

Whereas in food science, their interest is in food chemistry which is the study of chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of foods. The biological substances include meat, poultry, lettuce, beer, milk, and other food products. They may include the chemistry and the biochemistry of carbohydrates, lipids, and protein, water, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, food additives, flavours, and colours.

Compare this with food technology that deals with the application of food science of preservation, processing, packaging, distribution, and use of safe food. It also deals with products change under certain food processing techniques either to enhance or to prevent them from happening.

Food engineering on the other hand is the industrial process to manufacture food such as canning, vacuum packing and various technology to mass-produce food products, the physics of heat transfer, temperature and duration, and how they can affect the taste, texture, colour and the final quality of the manufactured products.

They work together with food scientists to study the production and processing quality of food, food contaminants that are potentially harmful. They partner with food engineers and producers to test food safety and evaluate adherence to health guidelines.

Others in the food industries work as food tasters in organoleptic evaluation. They are highly paid with constraints imposed on their lifestyles, such as they must have good health, not be a smoker or drinker and must not have an aversion or liking only to certain foods. They should not have any food taboos, cultural or religious restrictions on tasting or eating certain foods.

Additionally, a food scientist also studies the deterioration and processing of foods by using microbiology, engineering, and chemistry.  They determine nutrient levels of food by analysing its content. They look for new nutritional food sources and investigate avenues for making processed foods taste good, safe, and healthy. They also find the best way to distribute, process, preserve and package the food.

Nutritional science one the other hand, similar to nutrition, dietetics, food science, food chemistry, food processing and food technology as a subject is taught at universities around the world.  They too need to study basic subjects like biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics in their first two years.  

Later a student may be taught advanced organic chemistry, functional biology, biochemistry and even molecular biology and genetics besides nutrition of course and the effects of food on the body in health and in disease. Most universities train students to specialize in subjects like food chemistry, nutritional physiology, food law and nutritional medicine. Students who are more interested in the economic aspect usually specialize in the field of food economics.

Many nutrition scientists are involved in nutrition research, or they may become an applied nutritionist which is a profession like doctors in medicine. Nutritionists like medical doctors apply all the knowledge the nutrition scientist has searched and researched and passed their knowledge on to the nutritionist to practice exactly like the medical scientist passed on all their discoveries in medical science to the medical doctor to apply them in their practice. Nutritionists may or may not go into lab-based research, similar to a clinician who may or may not go into lab-based medical research.

Similar to translational medicine, we may also have translational nutrition where research findings and discoveries pertaining to food, nutrition and disease are passed on to the nutritionist to practise. They find employment with the government or health organizations including food and the pharmaceutical industries. The opportunities for all these categories of food and nutrition are so wide like a blue wide ocean.

Nutritionists besides employment with the government, Ministry of Health, private health and pharmaceutical companies or with welfare organizations, FAO and WHO. They may also specialize and work independently in areas such as:

• Health & Wellness
• Pathophysiology
• Functional Clinical assessment
• Vitamins & Minerals
• Geriatric Nutrition
• Vegetarian Nutrition
• Nutraceuticals
• Food and Nutrition in Environmental Challenges & their Solutions
• Eating Disorders & Weight Management
• Nutrition Therapy Exercise Physiology
• Clinical Nutrition
• Weight Management
• Women’s Special Health Concerns
• Herbal Sciences
• Traditional Chinese Herbalism
• Pregnancy, Paediatrics & Adolescent Nutrition
• Community Nutrition
• Sports Nutrition
• Herbal medicines and Nutrition
• Complementary & Nutritional Medicine

The scope is so wide, like trying to swim in a deep blue ocean.

Other food scientists, besides nutritionists work in other areas like: 

• Food technologist
• Food product and process development specialist
• Food safety inspector
• Flavour chemist
• Quality assurance analyst
• Raw materials procurement executive

 So far, I have not come across any food, nutrition or dietetics graduates unemployed in Malaysia, Singapore or in any other country. This is because everyone knows food, besides air and water, is the only ingredient we need to stay healthy and alive in this world. Absolutely no other ingredient is more crucial than food for our body every day.

Their salaries are on par or even better than in other professions. In Malaysia, as far as I know a nutritionist or a food scientist in the private sector earns about RM 5,000 to RM 6,500 per month after a year in service. Elsewhere we see the same trend.  

Let us take the United States for instance:

Nutritional Scientist Industry

In 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed the median annual pay for dietitians and nutritionists as ​$61,270​, or ​$29.46​, per hour. The highest listed salary was ​$87,360​, and ​$38,890​ was the bottom of the range. 

Top salaries were found in health care organizations as diagnosing or treating practitioners. The salaries for independent contractors vary based upon the client load. You may be able to work in a clinical setting and work in private practice to bolster your salary.

Nutritional Scientist Years of Experience

Experience will establish their reputation in the field. Since work is predicated on referrals from physicians. As a nutrition scientist becomes more experienced, he will have the opportunity to build relationships with providers and this will help them build their clientele. They may also have the opportunity to supervise a team of nutritionists or participate in research studies.

Nutrition Scientist Job Growth Trend

Available positions in nutrition science careers are projected to grow over the next 10 years. You can expect 8 percent growth in available positions between now and 2029. An increase in obesity in the U.S., along with heart disease and diabetes, will reinforce the need for more nutritionists and dietitians.

Notable nutritional scientists who were forefathers of nutrition are:

John Yudkin MA (Cambridge), MD (London), PhD (Cambridge), FRCP, FRIC, FIBiol. (1910–1995), who established the first degree in nutritional science in any European university.

Hans Adalbert Schweigart (1900–1972), the creator of the term vital substances

Hans Konrad Biesalski (1949)

Hanni Rützler (1962).

We thank them for this.  

(I did my Postgraduate Diploma in Nutrition under Professor John Yudin who was the Chair of Nutrition, University of London at Queen Elizabeth College. I studied alongside with 6 other doctors from other countries, including a Malaysian doctor who later became the Head of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Malaya. Later he was promoted as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. 

There was another doctor a year ahead of me who continued with his PhD at QEC. He subsequently  became a Professor at the then University of Singapore, now the National University of Singapore).