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Facebook!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
Click for: Additional information and link for application
Louisiana State University Agricultural Center and Louisiana State University A&M, Baton Rouge, LA seek candidates for Director of the School of Nutrition and Food Sciences. The successful candidate will be a leader with a shared vision to guide, support, and inspire a multidisciplinary faculty and staff in their tripartite mission of scholarly teaching, research, and outreach.
The Director has leadership and administrative responsibilities for encouraging and supporting ongoing academic excellence in cutting-edge research, education, and outreach in the School. The Director will represent the School, strengthen existing partnerships, and develop new liaisons and partnerships with stakeholders locally, statewide, nationally, and globally. LSU System’s plan for its role, scope, and mission as a leading academic institution provides the framework for research, teaching, and outreach activities and the Director will take the lead in developing a strategic plan for the School that is consistent with current and future plans for excellence. Specific duties will include: administration of scholarly programs; mentoring of faculty, staff, and students for professional growth and advancement; oversight and administration of curricula; recruitment of new faculty and students; serving as a liaison with LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center and other organizations including state, national, and international academic and private or governmental institutions. Effectively manage the fiscal, human and physical resources of the department, and evaluate the performance of the department and its faculty and staff. Facilitate working relationships with regional, parish and station offices and other departments within the LSU Agricultural Center. Catalyze extramural funding and collaborations with industry stakeholders, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists from other departments within the LSU system. This is a joint position between campuses of the LSU Agricultural Center and LSU A&M with the primary appointment being through the LSU Agricultural Center. The school director’s responsibilities are performed in a manner that is non-discriminatory on the basis of race, creed, color, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, sex, national origin, age, mental or physical disability, or veteran's status. The school director reports to the Vice President for Agriculture through the program leaders of the LSU Agricultural Center campus and the executive associate dean of the College of Agriculture of the LSU A&M campus.
Upcoming in SNFS
- 1 - 5 Dec 2021: Concentrated Study Period begins- no meetings, social activities, athletic events, or other extracurricular activities requiring student participation will be scheduled; no major examinations will be given in academic courses other than labs
- 6 - 11 Dec 2021: Final Examinations
- 17 Dec 2021, Firday: Fall 2021 Commencement
- Link to LSU Academic Calendars
- Recordings and text lists of Graduates are avaiable on the Commencement website.
- Celebrate your Graduation: Social media, Instagram, Gifs, and zoom backgrounds to celebrate your Tiger Pride.
LSU COVID-19 Updates & Information
SNFS Training & Certification
Upcoming Workshops
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.
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
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
Evelyn Watts: Keeping Louisiana's seafood safe
(3/26/2021) Evelyn Watts gets to combine three of her favorite things in her job: people, seafood and traveling.
As a seafood extension specialist with the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, Watts spends a lot of time meeting people who work in the industry and teaching them the best ways to process safe, high-quality seafood products.
“I help the industry understand regulations so they know how that applies to their facilities and to their processes,” she said.
She also conducts research on seafood topics. One project has involved studying how different methods of processing crawfish affect the amount of fat in tail meat. Processing has evolved significantly in the past 30 years, she said.
It once was common for crawfish to be boiled, peeled while still hot and then sold fresh in grocery stores. Now, it’s typical for crawfish to be steamed, chilled, peeled, packaged and frozen before it’s shipped to stores. Watts’ studies have found that the modern method helps preserve more fat — and flavor.
Watts said she has enjoyed developing relationships with regulatory agencies, university colleagues and those who work in the seafood industry. Many crawfish peelers and crab pickers in Louisiana speak Spanish, which is Watts’ native language.
“Whenever I walk in a processing floor, it is really nice the way that I can actually interact directly with them,” she said. “I talk with them. They are willing to help and listen to things I have to say.”
Watts never thought she would have a career in food science and food safety. She grew up wanting to have her own pet clinic and studied veterinary medicine at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. She was required to take microbiology and food safety classes — and she ended up falling in love with that subject area.
She went on to earn a master’s degree in food safety from the University of San Carlos followed by a doctorate from LSU in food science.
She enjoys putting her skills to use while getting to explore Louisiana.
“I’m not native to Louisiana, but Louisiana is my home, and through my work, I get to enjoy the best of Louisiana — that is their people and their food,” she said.
