"They never get proper food": Dhaval's dream of making dysphagia diet delicious

That’s why Dhaval Patel is working in the lab to modify the food many of us take for granted. The modified meals he is creating for his Master of Science in Food Innovation may soon help people with swallowing issues by replacing liquid food with a nutritious and enjoyable alternative.

Dhaval is in the initial sensory testing phase of creating a texture-modified chickpea mix, designed for people with dysphagia, a disorder preventing them from swallowing food comfortably or safely. The disorder mostly affects elderly people.

There’re a few causes of dysphagia, including a lack of saliva in the mouth and poor muscle coordination in the throat.

When the average person swallows, the sensations in their mouth and throat automatically interact with the brain and allow us to propel food down to our stomach. If that system doesn’t work correctly, food can get stuck in the throat, go into the lungs or be painful to eat. It gets worse if the mouth cannot produce enough saliva to lubricate food first.

The most common solution is to have food prepared by a carer. All the ingredients get thrown into a blender and mixed with gum to create a safe texture, but it’s an approximate process with little thought put into taste or enjoyment.

Dhaval wants to change that. His model study on modified chickpeas could open the door to a wide world of safe and nutritious food that mimics the tastes and sensations of normal food.

 “Everyone deserves good food. People who have this condition are eating smoothies and liquid food. They never get proper food,” Dhavel said.

“They can’t swallow, but this food can mimic the proper sensations. If they can feel the food and it has more flavour it’ll be far more enjoyable for them.”

To create the mixture, Dhaval blends up chickpeas and puts them through a series of sieves, each with different size openings. The small pieces of chickpea fall through, getting stuck in the appropriate size sieve. This leaves him with a range of chickpea particles, ranging from 150micrometer to 2mm.

It’s then mixed with different types and quantities of gum, making it smooth and easy to swallow.

To ensure the mixture is safe, Dhaval used a device which measures swallowing force. The food is placed into the machine which applies the minimum amount of force needed to swallow the food. The result is a quantifiable figure showing if it’s safe or not.

The next step was testing on real humans. People from around the university were invited to take part in a sensory sampling season of the different chickpea mixtures. This way Dhaval could narrow down what people enjoyed eating and what they thought about different characteristics, such as the texture or viscosity.

Dhaval is now working on refining the enjoyability and swallowing comfortability of the mixture. Following that, he plans to conduct sensory tasting on people suffering from dysphagia.

Once the model study is complete, Dhaval hopes to see his work combined with emerging technologies like 3D printing. Safe and delicious foods could be printed to mimic real foods, making it more appetizing, and actually safer to eat.

“We could make this food into appetising shapes that look nice on a plate. It’s appealing to them, but it also helps increase saliva production.”

Dhaval has always had a passion for health and nutrition. Before starting his postgraduate studies at Lincoln he worked in the food technology industry, contributing to brands like Go Healthy.

Once he’s finished with his Research Masters’, Dhaval will begin working on a PhD as one of our Food Transitions 2050 scholars.

Do you want to help shape the future of our food? Our Master of Science in Food Innovation could be the perfect next step for you.