Foodomics was defined in 2009 as "a discipline that studies the Food and Nutrition domains through the application and integration of advanced -omics technologies to improve consumer's well-being, health, and knowledge". Foodomics requires the combination of food chemistry, biological sciences, and data analysis.
The study of foodomics became under the spotlight after it was introduced in the first international conference in 2009 at Cesena, Italy. Many experts in the field of omics and nutrition were invited to this event in order to find the new approach and possibility in the area of food science and technology. However, research and development of foodomics today are still limited due to high throughput analysis required. The American Chemical Society journal called Analytical Chemistry dedicated its cover to foodomics in December 2012.
Foodomics involves four main areas of omics:
* Genomics, which involves investigation of genome and its pattern.
* Transcriptomics, which explores a set of gene and identifies the difference among various conditions, organisms, and circumstance, by using several techniques including microarray analysis;
* Proteomics, studies every kind of proteins that is a product of the genes. It covers how protein functions in a particular place, structures, interactions with other proteins, etc.;
* Metabolomics, includes chemical diversity in the cells and how it affects cell behavior;