Human nutrition and the food industry

Between the 1960s and 1970s, nutrition in hospitals took off in leaps and bounds.

This evolution has been mainly due to the appearance in current practice, particularly in intensive care, of enteral and then parenteral artificial nutrition.

Adapted nutrition is now an integral part of hospital treatment. This new approach to patient care involves early recourse to nutrition, concomitant with elective therapies for the disease.

In the field of nutrition, recourse to the food industry and its techniques has become an everyday occurrence.

The aim of this article, after a reminder of recommended nutritional intakes for healthy subjects in a state of equilibrium, is to clarify and develop the industry's role in the development of food supplements, enteral and parenteral nutrition.