Down a long, quiet hallway in the University of Santiago de Chile's Food Research Building, a partition separates the path to the Food Properties Research Laboratory (Inproal), home to Dr. Carla Arancibia and her team's research space.
Crossing the partition reveals a dynamic, collaborative environment where young researchers work among samples, equipment, and workbenches. Carla, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at Usach, has shifted her research focus in recent years toward a generation quite distinct from the students in her laboratory: senior citizens.
The Food Research Building at the University of Santiago de Chile features a variety of long, quiet hallways; at the end of one of them, a partition separates the path to the Food Properties Research Laboratory (Inproal), where Dr. Carla Arancibia works alongside her team.
Upon crossing it, the scene changes. Young researchers move back and forth among workbenches, samples, and equipment in an environment where work progresses collaboratively. There stands Carla, a faculty member in the Department of Food Science and Technology at Usach, who in recent years has focused her attention on a generation very different from the one that currently occupies that space: older adults.
Dr. Arancibia’s research proposal was initially presented a year earlier at the International Symposium Delivery of Functionality in Complex Food Systems (DOF 2025), co-hosted by USACH and the University of the Andes. The three-day Santiago event brought together over 130 international specialists to discuss future food challenges. A year after that gathering, this Fondecyt Regular grant brings the focus back to her laboratory.
Under the lengthy title “Enhancing lipid bioaccessibility and sensory comfort through a multidisciplinary approach based on oral processing and digestion of bioactive nanoemulsion-filled gels tailored to the elderly”, the research addressed a question far more down-to-earth than its title might suggest: How can we develop nutritious foods for senior citizens without sacrificing the pleasure of eating?
“From studies we’ve conducted with older adults, we know that this type of food evokes feelings of familiarity, reward, and even childhood memories for them. Its importance goes far beyond mere nutrition. That’s why we wanted to develop a flan-style dessert designed especially for them,” the researcher explains.
Far from a simple whim, this effort responds to Chile's rapid population aging. Data from the 2024 Census shows that adults aged 65 and older represent 14% of the population today, up from 6.6% in 1992. Meanwhile, the population under 15 years of age declined from 29.4% to 17.7% over the same period.
This demographic shift extends far beyond Chile, as population aging affects nearly every region worldwide. According to the United Nations, one in six people will be 65 or older.
In this context, an aging population also raises the question of how our diets should change, “because as we age, it’s not just our nutritional needs that change—our ability to chew, swallow, and perceive flavors and textures may also change, and with that, the very experience of sitting down to eat. For years, we’ve approached nutrition for older adults from the perspective of what they need to eat; today we have to ask ourselves what they want to eat,” adds the researcher.
This context inspired the development of a flan-style dessert. Although seemingly straightforward, formulating the product presented multiple hurdles for the research team, beginning with the selection of the appropriate protein source.
The team initially worked with animal-based proteins before exploring plant-based alternatives in search of more sustainable, lower-cost ingredients. “We encountered several difficulties because these proteins are hard to find on the market; they have distinctive flavors and offer fewer technological possibilities. They take much longer to gel, requiring higher concentrations. We tackled all these challenges using different approaches from food technology and food engineering,” explains Dr. Carla Arancibia.
Through these efforts, the team successfully formulated a flan-style dessert containing three times the protein of a conventional flan, with no added sugar, alongside the essential nutrients tailored for older adults' diets.
“We included vitamin D because deficiency is a widespread problem in the population. We also added omega-3 fatty acids because studies have shown they help maintain cognitive function in older adults. That’s why we wanted both to be included in the formulation,” adds Arancibia.
After the project was completed, the dessert’s development moved beyond the confines of the laboratory, as nearly 100 senior citizens participated in a sensory evaluation, where they were able to taste the formulation and provide feedback on its acceptability.
This session was also the result of a process that had begun much earlier. Through focus groups, the team of researchers spoke with older adults to learn which foods they had stopped eating, which ones caused them the most difficulty swallowing, and what they considered “convenience” when eating. Their responses were incorporated during the product’s development.
“The challenge now is to transition into a second phase, scale up the project, and evaluate its technical and economic feasibility so that, ultimately, a commercial product for older adults can be developed. But we must also gain a much better understanding of this consumer group. While we know a great deal about their clinical and nutritional needs, we still know very little about what they actually want to eat. In the end, we are all heading in that direction, so we need to start asking ourselves what we will want to eat in the future,” reflects Dr. Carla Arancibia.