Can you begin by introducing Brightseed and the company’s area of research?
Brightseed is the developer of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that we call Forager. And Forager maps the very beautiful and complex world of phytonutrients.
We’re attempting to understand the intersection of plant and human biology at the molecular or cellular level, and to truly understand at the highest resolution possible what happens in our bodies when we ingest plants and how those plants can really support health and wellness holistically.
In simple terms, what are phytonutrients?
If you’re in the food world today, you’re familiar with the big molecules in plants: fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Brightseed is not focused on these big molecules. We're focused on the tiny molecules and those are the phytonutrients. Common ones are resveratrol in red wine, lycopene in tomatoes or flavonoids in berries. We often call them the 'gold inside of plants' or 'the dark matter of nutrition'.
How do phytonutrients figure in the idea of ‘super-foods’, the concept of which has faced some backlash?
There's nothing wrong with super-foods per se, but the word does’'t really mean anything. It's just generally accepted as a marketing term. What people are missing when it comes to super-foods, though, is that the thing that makes them super are their nutrients, and specifically the phytonutrients, which is what Brightseed is attempting to map and discover.
