A balanced diet supplies sufficient amounts of macro- and micronutrients and is mandatory to secure complete functionality of the body and maintain good health. Beyond the pure intake of energy and building blocks, overall sensory attractiveness and individual preferences strongly affect the choice of foods, as eating and drinking is a daily procedure with fundamental hedonic aspects. The Biosystems Chemistry & Human Metabolism group isolates and purifies new compounds from food sources for structure elucidation and subsequent investigation of bioactivity, e.g. sensory activity and receptor activation. We target non-volatile dietary bioactives and tastants, their formation and the effect of food processing, the metabolic fate after consumption and the structure and bioactivity of metabolites. We plan and participate in human intervention studies and apply untargeted and targeted UPLC-MS based methods to identify and quantify food-derived compounds in blood and urine. Our work expands the knowledge on food composition, options for modulation of food constituents via processing, and human metabolism.