The Department of Food Science and Nutrition is the first in the State of Kuwait to offer B.Sc. degrees in Food Science as well as Nutrition area. With the ever increasing world population, it is becoming all the way more important to produce sufficient amount of good quality food to meet the nutritional requirements of this population.

The Food Scientists and Nutritionists have to invent newer technologies to preserve the vital nutrients in various foods during processing operations. With the changing life styles, a number of nutritional diseases and disorders such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular problems are appearing in the population. Now the need has arisen to strengthen our Kuwaiti national manpower thru advanced formal education in the area of Nutrition and Food Science to tackle these highly complex problems.

During the last three decades, the food science and nutrition have made unprecedented and rapid advances in the area of food processing, quality control, food safety, and functional foods to tackle various nutrition-related diseases. After obtaining undergraduate degrees, our students need a type of formal education that gives them strong scientific knowledge and managerial skills in order to meet the manpower needs of fast-growing food service and food processing industry to support various programs aiming at tackling nutrition-related diseases and disorders. The Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University, proposes to offer a Master of Science degree in Nutrition Science and Food Science.

The program is designed to prepare post-graduate students for a career with educational and research institutes, hospital and free-standing nutrition clinics, health delivery system, food industry, social service agencies, and government regulatory bodies. This program specially takes into consideration the existing factual situation that Kuwait imports most of its food requirements, the hot climate prevailing in this region, the food handling practices being followed by the untrained workers, and to support various educational programs aiming at tackling nutrition-related diseases and disorders, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart diseases etc.

A wide range of potential areas for research are available for students. Research areas in nutrition include diet and the nutritional aspects of chronic diseases, obesity, community nutrition, geriatric nutrition, nutrient metabolism and regulation, malnutrition, nutrition assessment and lifecycle nutrition. Areas of research in food science include food biochemistry, food chemistry, food microbiology, packaging, food engineering, food safety and quality control, functional foods, and new product and process development.

The proposed program aims to blend food science and nutrition principles to provide food technological skills and nutritional knowledge with a possibility to choose any one track of concentration, i.e., Nutrition Science or Food Science.

Program Mission

The mission of the Master of Science in either Nutrition Science or Food Science is to provide high-quality and career-oriented, cutting-edge graduate education in order to meet the requirements of food industry, nutrition clinics, social service agencies and government regulatory bodies. The mission is also to provide an environment in which faculty and students engage in generating new knowledge through discovery and transmit that knowledge to future generations. Thus, an important part of our graduate education is equipping students with skills to generate and assimilate knowledge to solve societal problems.

Program Educational Objectives

The objective of the program is to produce graduates who will have the ability to:

Manage food industry and provide leadership in providing a variety of healthy functional foods to tackle nutrition-related diseases (obesity, type-2 diabetes, CVDs) with innovative strategy and goals.
Apply the cutting-edge food technological and nutritional knowledge in today's competitive world market.
Keep pace with the fast-changing food processing technologies.
Keep developing skills to tackle emerging nutritional disorders.
Participate in community based health promotion programs and interventions and effectively communicate nutrition knowledge to influence behavior.
Understand and explain the newest results of nutrition basic science research and extend these principles into application for individual diet and population recommendations.
Procedural Objectives

The procedural objective of the program is to produce graduates who:

Apply food science knowledge in solving problems related to food quality, food safety, storage and distribution.
Apply the cutting-edge food technological and nutritional skills required in today's competitive market.
Keep pace with the emerging food technologies and nutritional disorders.
Design and develop innovative methods of food processing, food safety and quality control with the major objective of keeping local industry competitive.
Design, develop, implement and evaluate nutritional surveys, surveillance and intervention programs that provide suitable solutions to the emerging nutritional problems.
Acquire skills to create an awareness of healthy eating lifestyles for the improvement of overall health status of Kuwaiti population.