The School of Nutrition and Food Sciences aims for excellence with comprehensive, integrated, and 21st century education, scholarship, and outreach. Food science professionals train students in the quality, processing, and safety of foods for the multibillion dollar food industry. Nutrition professionals provide training in nutrition science, community nutrition, and clinical nutrition with a focus on improving health and well-being of all citizens and populations.
Scholarly and educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate level integrate the basic and applied sciences with outreach.
Our Mission
The mission of the SNFS is to prepare future professionals and support the community through discovery, didactic and experiential teaching and learning, and the development of services and products that improve the health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities in a complex and changing society, and to assist local, national and global food industries.
Position Announcement
Director of the School of Nutrition
and Food Sciences
Overview: The Louisiana State University Agricultural Center and LSU College of Agriculture seeks outstanding applicants for the Director of the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences.
The nationally and internationally recognized School seeks a dynamic leader with a clear vision for the future and an aptitude for cultivating a shared vision among teams. The School Director is an administrative position responsible for developing and implementing a strategic vision for the School, in alignment with priorities of the LSU AgCenter, LSU College of Agriculture, and LSU System. The Director will lead a diverse group of talented, multidisciplinary faculty and staff in fulfilling the research, teaching, and extension missions of a Research I, land-grant university. The School Director is a tenured 12-month fiscal year appointment with joint responsibilities between the LSU Agricultural Center (AgCenter) and the LSU A&M College of Agriculture.
Application information link: Director and Professor (School of Nutrition and Food Sciences) - East Baton Rouge Parish - R00065126
Upcoming in SNFS
- 13 -14 October, Thurs-Fri: Fall Holiday
- Link to LSU Academic Calendars
LSU COVID-19 Updates & Information
SNFS Training & Certification
23 January 2023 Registration will open soon!
AFDO Sanitation Control Procedures (SCP) For Fish and Fishery Products
The Sanitation Control Procedures (SCP)For Fish and Fishery Products course assists the seafood industry in developing and implementing “Sanitation Control Procedures” as mandated by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Course participants will learn how to draft SSOP's and build monitoring programs for FDA's 8 key sanitary conditions. Participants that attend the standard one-day course will receive a "Certificate of SCP Course Completion” from AFDO
For more information, and a link to the registration, go the AFDO Sanitation Control Procedures (SCP) For Fish and Fishery Products page.
24 - 26 January 2023 Registration will open soon
Basic Seafood HACCP Training
Training in Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is mandated for the seafood processors by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin-istration (FDA). Basic HACCP courses teach the principles of HACCP and empower processors to develop HACCP plans specific for each seafood product they handle or produce.
The School of Nutrition and Food Sciences offers a two and a half day basic Seafood HACCP training designed to educate seafood processors, packers, wholesales, importers, harvesters and warehouses about seafood safety. Participants who complete the course receive a certificate issued by AFDO, that fulfills the FDA requirements for seafood HACCP training.
See the Basic Seafood HACCP Training page for more information.
In the News
LSU AgCenter, La. Sea Grant unveil first-of-its-kind Seafood Processing Lab on the Gulf Coast
[22 July 2022] JEANERETTE, La. — The LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant showcased a new Seafood Processing Demonstration Laboratory at the AgCenter Iberia Research Station.
On July 19, the organizations hosted a ribbon cutting for the facility located at 603 LSU Bridge Road in Jeanerette, Louisiana. The facility will offer seafood processors hands-on training with equipment that can be used to create value-added seafood products and add marketability to what is being caught in Louisiana’s coastal and inland waters.
The facility is the first of its kind in the nation, according to Evelyn Watts, LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant seafood extension specialist. She and Thomas Hymel, LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant marine agent, had the idea for the facility two and half years ago and were instrumental in bringing it to fruition.
“We are an example for Louisiana, the Gulf Coast and the rest of the country,” Watts said. “The idea of the facility is that we can use it as a demonstration lab for people who want to start a seafood processing business. We can show them what type of equipment, with what layout, how to pack and how to freeze. We can also do this for existing facilities that need training for their employees or their managers on how to do things. We are looking to work with seafood technology and also with seafood safety.”
Hymel serves as director of Louisiana Fisheries Forward, a voluntary educational program for commercial fishermen with the goal of improving the economic success of Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry. During his 37 years in his position, he has helped the Louisiana Gulf Coast’s commercial fishing industry tread water amid natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a billion-dollar industry,” Hymel said. “There’s so much demand for the product that we have. Now, there are new ways to package it, freeze it and market it that we haven’t done much of in the past. There are new opportunities now that we never had before in seafood, so this facility gives us an opportunity to capture some of that and help move the state forward.”
Hymel said plans are to start demonstrating simple projects that can be incorporated into a small fisherman’s repertoire to create value-added products.
“There’s a lot of questions about smoked fish — smoked catfish and garfish,” Hymel said. “That’s trending right now.”
“We had this equipment, but we could only take it on the road so many places,” said Julie Anderson Lively, executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program at LSU. “It’s amazing that this facility can now serve more with the equipment always available and ready.”
The lab is stocked with ready-to-use seafood processing equipment including stainless steel kitchen-grade appliances like a meat grinder, bandsaw, processing tables and sinks, ice makers and industry-specific items like a shrimp splitter, a fish scaler and modified atmosphere packaging machines.
Numerous refrigerators and freezers will be used to store the value-added seafood products that are derived from the fresh daily catches. Watts said while some of the equipment in the lab was from prior purchases, the remainder of the equipment was obtained through donations and grant-funded acquisitions.
LSU Interim Vice President of Agriculture and Dean of the College of Agriculture Luke Laborde was on hand for the ribbon cutting ceremony. He said the lab adds to the rich history of research and extension work conducted at the Iberia Research Station, but the real value of the facility will go far beyond the Louisiana seafood industry.
“This is going to bring new people, new clients into the industry, but more importantly, it’s going to bring new economic development to south Louisiana and the Acadiana area,” Laborde said.
The laboratory will add seafood to the list of research and extension offerings at the station. The facility is currently home to research plots of sugarcane, soybeans and forage grasses. Research into beef cattle breeding, feeding and grazing remains a substantial part of the work done there. The building that now houses the seafood lab was once a beef cattle grow-out barn — but the renovated, pristine facility shows no evidence of its prior purpose.
“The seafood industry is a significant contributor to our economy,” said Kurt Guidry, AgCenter Southwest Region director and agricultural economist. “We at the AgCenter and Sea Grant need to service that industry. This is going to give them the ability to do what they have already been doing and taking it to the next level with value-added products.”
Among those attending the ribbon-cutting event were LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant administrators, private fishermen and local dignitaries, including Iberia Parish President Larry Richard, who said the new facility will bring great opportunities to Iberia Parish.
“This is a big deal for us,” Richard said. “When you’re talking about the small businesses coming in and learning how to package seafood, and things of that nature, you’re bringing more opportunities, more business to the parish, which means bringing in more tax dollars.”
Former graduate student of SNFS joins United Nations
Ms. Joan Pashu Pohamba, a former graduate student of Dr. Subramaniam Sathivel, joined the United Nations (UN) under the World Food Program (WFP) agency in the Program Policy Office for Biotechnology and Food Fortification under the Namibian country office.
It is a significant achievement for a young scientist to join the UN. Ms. Pohamba is a positive and determined individual who wants to help the rural African community, especially Namibia. This led Ms. Pohamba to join Dr. Sathivel’s Lab at the School of Nutrition and Food science and Department of Biological Agricultural Engineering, Louisiana State University, in 2019 to conduct a master’s study on improving the shelf life and food safety of the Namibian indigenous beverage “Oshikundu” under a Foreign Fulbright scholarship.
Despite the COVID19 restriction, Ms. Pohamba never gave up her hope of successfully completing her research. Ms. Pohamba successfully completed her thesis “Production of a Namibian Oshikundu Fermented Beverage Prototype using Lactobacillus plantarum NRRL-B-4496 and Saccharomyces cerevisia (Safeale S-33)” and returned to Namibia.
Ms. Pohamba mentioned that her thesis study had become her backbone in the current role that the UN entrusted to her to ensure zero hunger within the globe, particularly within Namibia. Ms. Pohamba’s accomplishment was well recognized by the Louisiana State University International Programs and awarded first place in the students’ category of the LSU Virtual International Research Fair. Ms. Pohamba has thanked Dr. Sathivel for believing in her as a person and her research vision. Dr. Sathivel and her fellow students at her Food and Bioprocessing Lab congratulate Ms. Pohamba on her success and wish her the best and plenty of success at the UN.
Gabriel Joined Acme Smoked Fish of North Carolina/RC Creations, LLC, North Carolina
Congratulations to Mr. Gabriel Cespedes. Mr. Cespedes has joined as Food Safety Technologist at Acme Smoked Fish of North Carolina/RC Creations, LLC, North Carolina.
Acme Smoked Fish is a smoked salmon manufacturer originating in Brooklyn, New York in 1954 and produces a wide variety of retail & foodservice cold-smoked and hot-smoked salmon and finfish products.
Mr. Cespedes received his Undergraduate Degree from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. He is a master’s student under Dr. Subramaniam Sathivel at the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences and is planning to graduate in the Fall semester 2021. Dr. Sathivel and Gabriel’s lab mates would like to congratulate Gabriel on his new job and wish him continued success in his professional career development.
Former SNFS Graduate Student Master’s Thesis and Business Featured in Philippines News
Ms. Kriza Calumba Master's study was recognized and featured with several news appearances in the Philippines (Manila Bulletin, This Week in Asia, NextShark News, and the Chiang Rai Times) Ms. Calumba master’s thesis was also published in Food Production, Processing, and Nutrition peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Ms. Calumba was a former graduate student of Dr. Subramaniam Sathivel at the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences at LSU and was a Fulbright Scholar. In 2018, she was awarded an IFT Feeding Tomorrow Andy Rao International Division Travel Scholarship.
After completion of her master’s thesis, Kriza joined the Department of Food Science and Chemistry, University of the Philippines, Mindanao as an assistant professor. Kriza has opened a probiotic yogurt milk tea business in Davao City, Philippines. Link to Article: "Why Milk Tea can be good for you."
Pearls of wisdom: Unhinging facts about oysters
(06/07/21) BATON ROUGE, La. — “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster,” said 18th-century Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. Whether enjoyed fried, grilled, in a seafood gumbo or, perhaps most opinion dividing, raw, there is no denying the oyster’s impact on both Louisiana’s culture and seafood industry.
(right) Raw oysters can pose greater health risks when consumed between May and October due to the prevalence of vibrio, according to the CDC V. Todd Miller/LSU AgCenter Photo Credit.
Oysters have been consumed by humans for thousands of years. Wealthy Greeks and Romans thought of them as a delicacy and an aphrodisiac. While the former is still true in many cultures, the latter is more debatable.
Oysters are high in zinc, with six medium-sized ones providing 32 milligrams or 291% of the daily value, according to Healthline.com. Studies have shown that zinc is important to testosterone production in males, which would lend credence to the aphrodisiac theory, but it isn’t fully known if that is the actual reason for the long-held belief.
Another oyster claim is that they are alive until shucked. Megan La Peyre, a researcher in the LSU AgCenter School of Renewable Natural Resources, said this isn’t quite accurate.
“They are alive even after they are shucked,” she said. “If you eat them immediately after shucking, you are eating them live. And if you look carefully, you can see their heartbeat.”
One adage that many agree on is that oysters should not be consumed in months that don’t contain the letter “r” in their names. This idea likely dates back to 1599 when it appeared in an English cookbook, according to a New York Times article written in 2017 by science journalist Joanna Klein. There is merit to this, said AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant food safety specialist Evelyn Watts.
“We know that vibrio is more prevalent in warmer months,” Watts said. “But the fact is vibrio can occur at any time of the year, and eating raw or undercooked oysters always presents a foodborne risk.”
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, vibrio is bacteria that lives in coastal waters and is present in higher concentrations between May and October when the water is warmer. It causes vibriosis, which the CDC estimates causes 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths in the United States annually.
In addition to the greater risk of contracting vibrio, oysters are simply less appetizing in warmer months, which is when they spawn, La Peyre said.
“Oysters reproduce in the warmer months, so they are full of gametes,” she said, “while in the winter, they are ‘fat’ and growing and tend to be sweeter.”
Former oyster fisherman and current soft-shell crab producer Daniel Edgar, of Franklin, said refrigeration techniques have aided in oysters being consumed year-round in many coastal regions, where they don’t have to travel as far to market.
(right)Daniel Edgar is a former oyster fisherman who now specializes in soft-shell crab production.V. Todd Miller/LSU AgCenter Photo Credit
“Way back when, oyster harvesters didn’t have to keep a cooler on their boat,” Edgar said. “Today, any boat that spends the night offshore or the boats that fish far away, like south of Marsh Island, have to keep one on board. This was legislated to better protect the consumer.”
Edgar also said farm-raised oysters are easier to produce now than perhaps ever before with the right setup. Essentially all that is needed is enough brackish water and room to grow.
“There’s a guy in Grand Isle that sells oyster spats,” he said. “If you put 500 in a box when they’re young, in about a month they won’t fit in that box anymore, so you’ll have to divide them up into boxes of 250 and so on.”
Edgar and today’s oyster fishermen owe a lot to those credited with developing the commercial oyster industry in Louisiana: Croatian immigrants. LSU English professor Carolyn Ware, who specializes in folklife, wrote in Folklife in Louisiana about the history of Croatians in the state.
“Many of Louisiana’s Croatian men continue to fish oysters, and some are third- or fourth-generation oystermen,” Ware wrote. “Sons often start fishing with fathers on weekends and summers as children. As adults, they frequently still fish on the acres once leased by their fathers.”
Things have changed a great deal economically from those early days. AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant economist Rex Caffey said oysters are the third-most lucrative seafood crop in the state, behind only shrimp and menhaden, which generally aren’t fit for human consumption and are used primarily for fertilizer, animal food and as bait for blue crab.
“Recently, oysters and crabs have switched places from year to year in terms of total value,” Caffey said. “But in 2018, nearly $76 million worth of Gulf oysters were harvested in the state.”
Megan La Peyre can be reached at mlapeyre@agcenter.lsu.edu.
Evelyn Watts can be reached at egwatts@agcenter.lsu.edu.
Rex Caffey can be reached at rcaffey@agcenter.lsu.edu.
Writer: V. Todd Miller at vtmiller@agcenter.lsu.edu | permalink