Welcome to the December edition of the IFIS newsletter!

As 2025 draws to a close, the IFIS team would like to wish our community a very happy holiday season. We look forward to welcoming 2026 and all of the scientific innovation it will bring.

Let's dive into the latest news you won't want to miss >>>

Here at IFIS, one of our favourite UK Christmas traditions is sitting down to a festive Christmas dinner. This inspired us to take a closer look at the science on our plates, from perfectly crisp roast potatoes to Brussels sprouts and tangy cranberry sauce, and what the research reveals about them. Here are some articles which caught our eye:

Chang Liu et al., Journal of Food Science, Volume 90, Issue 3

Xiaoyu Gu et al., LWT, Volume 224

Joanna Doniec et al., Molecules, Volume 27, Issue 6

Claim a free trial of FSTA now to continue exploring this topic

After running your literature search, you need to decide which results are best for your research project. Treat this process like a funnel that only the best results can fit through by using these three steps:

> First, remove duplicate records using your reference manager.

> Screen titles and abstracts to discard anything that clearly doesn’t fit your search topic or comes from questionable sources.

> The remaining shortlist of articles should then be read in full, so you can confidently judge their relevance and credibility.

For more hints and tips about how to carry out an effective literature review, take a look at the IFIS Best Practice Guide for Literature Searching

Start the new year with a smoother, more reliable literature search experience. FSTA, Food Science & Technology Abstracts is a specialist database for food, nutrition and health sciences, offering high-quality, expertly curated abstracts from thousands of global sources with powerful food-specific indexing.

Trusted by the international food community, FSTA helps you cut through irrelevant and unreliable content. If your institution is not yet a subscriber, arrange a free trial and discover why FSTA is the go-to resource for food and health science research. Claim your free trial

The latest articles from our Thought for Food and Research Skills blogs 

Balancing People and Planet: Turning the COP30 Declaration into Action Through Food Science At COP30, leaders signed the Belém Declaration, putting people at the centre of climate action. Food science research can build sustainable, resilient food systems on a warming planet. Read more

 

Why Food Security Should Mean More Than the Bare Minimum Exploring why food security must encompass more than just production, focusing on nutrition, equity, and resilience for a sustainable future. Read more

FSTA helps you discover emerging research quickly, adding new entries weekly. In November 2025, over 18,000 new records were added, curated from 649 different sources, including 159 publishers based in 46 countries.

Learn more about the newest additions, screened by the FSTA science team for quality, integrity, and relevance.