FSHN

Tucked among cornfields and country roads just outside Champaign, Pear Tree Estate has hosted hundreds of weddings and events.

The facility, built in 2013, is clad in wood and nestled next to a little pond beyond which lies the familiar, flat horizon of central Illinois. Floor-to-ceiling windows allow light to flood the room and perfectly frame the picturesque corn growing right outside. 

Yuan-Xiang Pan, professor of food science and human nutrition in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, died on Sept. 7. He was 58.

Celebrating National Toasted Marshmallow Day with alumna Jessie Yang

Jessica “Jessie” Yang has taken what she learned as a food science student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and turned it into something spectacular: a marshmallow that changes color when you toast it.

A team of food science and human nutrition students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were the crème de la crème at the Institute of Food Technologists Student Association College Bowl Competition in Chicago on July 14.

In an innovative food science course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, students wandered through street markets in Veracruz, Mexico, and Taipei, Taiwan; and toured a coffee plantation and artisanal chocolate factory in a mountain village — all without leaving the Illinois campus.

What started as an at-home kitchen hobby has grown into something much bigger: Steepers Only, a Chicago-based tea company founded by Angelica Lee. Each batch she blends is more than just a drink; it's a celebration of the people and places that have shaped her life and gotten her to where she is now.

Lee’s entrepreneurial spark was lit early. She grew up in Chicago and watched her mother run a post-construction cleaning business.

“My mom inspires me and has been my biggest encouragement,” Lee said. 

Fried foods are popular with consumers, but their high fat content can contribute to health challenges like obesity and hypertension. If the food industry can offer lower-fat options of similar quality, people can more easily make health-conscious food choices.

Plastic products are ubiquitous in our food supply chain, shedding microplastics into every part of the human ecosystem. As they degrade, microplastics break down into even smaller fragments called nanoplastics — tiny particles that can affect biological molecules in ways not fully understood.

Sharon M. Donovan is a professor of nutritional sciences and the Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health, whose work centers on childhood obesity prevention and optimizing health throughout the lifespan.

 Scientists have long known that Black women with estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer and those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods often have more aggressive forms of the disease and poorer survival rates. However, the underlying factors that link these outcomes with women’s living environments have remained unclear.