The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) Lays the Ground for a Health Revolution

Filling the Black Hole of Nutritional Knowledge

The visionary Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI), developed and spearheaded by The Rockefeller Foundation, is at the starting gate.

Its near-term goal is to begin filling the black hole of nutritional knowledge by uncovering the biomolecular composition of foods through a global network of collaborators provided with standardized tools and training.

More than 26,000 biomolecules occur in plants, the overwhelming majority of which are unidentified and whose health effects are generally unknown.

Understanding these biomolecules has become even more important as climate change increases food insecurity and reduces the available nutrients in some crops.

Working with top research labs on each continent and partnering with a growing network of national lab hubs, PTFI aims to translate food science for all regional landscapes and traditional diets.

The longer-term goal? To create an equity-centered evidence-based system to prevent or treat diet-triggered diseases.

Expanding the Food Dictionary

“We know so much about the crevices and composition of the Moon and Mars, but we don’t have a comprehensive understanding of the composition of the food we eat,” said Dr. Maya Rajasekharan, Managing Director, Africa, for the Alliance Bioversity & International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Palmira, Colombia.

“We don’t understand climate change’s impact on that composition, or how certain foods interact with a person’s particular gut microbiome,” she said. “Our food dictionary is very limited at the moment.”

Dr. Joe Tohme, CIAT’s General Director, is quick to applaud The Rockefeller Foundation for providing seed funding for this transformative work while recognizing that the full impact may take years to realize.

“The Rockefeller Foundation has a proven track record of supporting research ecosystems that allow for long-term impact,” he said.

The Rockefeller Foundation has helped shape the effort and is providing funding through a grant to the Alliance and the American Heart Association (AHA). The AHA involvement makes the eventual health goals explicit.

“We increasingly understand that diet-related chronic disease is driven by food intake patterns based on biomolecular composition, rather than deficiency of a single nutrient,” said Selena Ahmed, PTFI’s Global Director, American Heart Association. “The PTFI is uncovering the black box of food and health linkages. This matches the American Heart Association’s goals to lead robust research on food while providing resources to improve healthcare in all communities.”

Collaborative Process to Arrive at the Starting Point

A list of the initial 1,650 foods to be analyzed was drawn up through a collaborative global process looking for foods important from both a nutritional and a cultural perspective. Eventually researchers want to map all biomolecules in the food supply.

Chontaduro fruit in the process of breakdown in the iOMICAS lab in Colombia. (Photo Credit Masha Hamilton)

Jaramillo’s lab has begun analytical work on 26 to 30 fruits and 45 to 50 bean varieties.

“We started looking at local fruits, like the chontadura,” he said, referring to a fruit with the consistency of sweet potato that grows from a species of palm native to the region. In Costa Rica, it’s called pejibaye; pigibaio in Panama; pijuayo in Peru and pupunha in Brazil.

“We decided to examine separately the pulp, the seed, and the skin, because we believe each will have different characteristics.”

The process includes a series of steps, including flash freezing, pulverizing, dissolving, filtering, and ionizing the food samples into their molecular constituents.