The Food Coherence System: A Bioelectric Dimension for Nutrition Science and Toxicology

Modern nutrition and toxicology primarily evaluate food through chemical composition, contaminant burden, and caloric density. Yet this reductionist lens may not fully capture the systemic dysregulation often observed with industrially processed diets. In this Perspective, we propose the Food Coherence System (FCS), a hypothesis-generating framework that reframes food not merely as chemical “fuel”, but as an instructional signal that can support or degrade the body’s regulatory coordination. The FCS posits that dietary exposures may modulate regulation through coupled biophysical mechanisms that influence bioelectric signaling and control, including membrane potentials, ion-channel behavior, mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm), redox dynamics, inflammatory tone, and neuroendocrine feedback loops. Within this model, Food Coherence is defined as the degree to which a food supports stable, low-noise, functionally adaptive signaling across tissues, consistent with preserved pattern stability and regenerative capacity. We also introduce bioelectric mutagen as a provisional, testable construct describing exposure patterns predicted to increase signaling noise, destabilize setpoints, compress adaptive variability, and impair recovery dynamics, relative to matched comparators. This framework is explicitly falsifiable and is not presented as a completed causal proof. We outline measurable signatures, including variance, drift, and recovery kinetics, together with example preregistered protocols that could refine, bound, or refute their core claims. This Perspective is intended to complement existing nutrition and toxicology models by adding bioelectric coherence as a candidate dimension of health, resilience, and recovery.