Suchergebnisse

Open Access Article; Published online: 29 Oct 2020 ; Global diets have transitioned in recent decades with animal and processed products increasing. Promoting a reversal in these trends towards plant-based diets could reduce the environmental impacts of food systems and reduce the prevalence of non-communicable diseases and malnutrition. In Spain, a reference point for the Mediterranean diet (predominantly plant-source based), plant-based alternatives to traditional animal-based products are receiving increased attention. However, limited focus has been given to the opinions of stakeholder groups on the potential of these novel products. We evaluate the opinions of stakeholders within the Spanish agri-food sector, using multicriteria and SWOT analyses, on traditional and novel food products. Stakeholders involved in the supply chain of food products (producers, processors, and distributors) were critical of novel plant-based foods, highlighting problems with their taste, processing technology, and high prices. These results contrast with the perspectives of policymakers, researchers, environmental NGOs, and consumers who see novel products more positively - healthier, more sustainable, and highly profitable. These results illustrate the more traditional mindset seen in Spanish production systems, contrasting with the rapidly shifting tastes and demands of consumers and the potential legislative orientation of policymakers. This study calls for improved understanding and collaboration between stakeholders to better manage complex choices that affect the future of food systems during their needed transformation.

Open Access Article; Published online: 29 Nov 2019. ; Replacing animal proteins with plant proteins in diets has been demonstrated to have both health and environmental advantages, driving a debate about the potential of protein-rich crops as dietary replacements for animal products. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how climate change could influence the potential for producing protein-rich crops. This study addresses this knowledge gap for the European Union. We analysed 13 protein-rich crops, using the crop suitability model EcoCrop and climate projections for the 2050s, based on 30 Global Circulation Models, under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5. The results suggest that current protein-rich crop distributions reflect climatic suitability. We demonstrate the heterogeneous impacts of climate change on crop suitability. In general, conditions in northern Europe were modelled to become more favourable for protein-rich crops, while in southern Europe modelled future climates limit the production of traditional protein-rich crops commonly grown there, including chickpea and lentil. Model results show an expanded area of high suitability for quinoa. Our results confirm the need for concerted breeding and research planning strategies to improve the tolerance of faba bean, lentil, and chickpea to the abiotic stresses that are predicted to become more common with climate change. At the same time, production in northern Europe can benefit from experimentation with protein-rich crops predicted to become more suitable there. Production planning and agricultural policy should consider these likely impacts, to encourage shifts that follow the emerging geographic patterns of crop suitability, and to support the resilience of protein-rich crop production in regions that may be negatively impacted by climate change. ; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid ; Peer Review

Open Access Journal; Published online: 04 Mar 2020 ; Global and European diets have shifted towards greater consumption of animal proteins. Recent studies urge reversals of these trends and call for a rapid transition towards adoption of more plant-based diets. This paper explored mechanisms to increase the production and consumption of plant-proteins in Europe by 2030, using participatory backcasting. We identified pathways to the future (strategies), as well as interim milestones, barriers, opportunities and actions, with key European stakeholders in the agri-food chain. Results show that four strategies could be implemented to achieve the desired future: increased research and development, enriched consumer education and awareness, improved and connected supply and value chains and public policy supports. Actions needed to reach milestones were required immediately, reinforcing the need for urgent actions to tackle the protein challenge. This study concretely detailed how idealized dietary futures can be achieved in a real-world context. It can support EU protein transition by informing policy makers and the broader public on potential ways to move towards a more sustainable plant-based future. The outputs of this analysis have the potential to be combined with dietary scenarios to develop more temporally explicit models of future dietary changes and how to reach them.

El artículo analiza el comportamiento y las actitudes adoptadas por la prensa española durante el primer periodo de la transición a la democracia (noviembre de 1975-diciembre de 1978), momento en el que se realizaron los cambios políticos e institucionales más relevantes del proceso. Desde diversas perspectivas se explica el papel que jugaron los principales periódicos, así como las razones que les llevaron al consenso en los temas fundamentales de discusión pública. De esta forma, se constata cómo los medios de comunicación colaboraron de forma decisiva en la construcción de una nueva comunidad política democrática. A través de varios ejemplos de diarios, tomados uno por uno y en conjunto, se explican las especiales características de este interesante caso de colaboración entre poder político y periodismo, incluyendo algunas excepciones como la prensa de extrema derecha y los sectores nacionalistas vascos.

This article analyses the behavior and attitude of the Spanish press at the beginning of the transition towards democracy (November 1975 – December 1978), during the most significant political and institutional change. The role of the main newspapers is assessed from different perspectives, together with the reasons for their consensus on the basic issues that were in the public eye. Through examples from several papers, taken one by one and as a whole, we will explain the exceptional characteristics of this interesting relationship between politics and journalism, and also include some exceptions such as the ultra-right-wing press and the Basque nationalist sector.

Open Access Journal ; The Amazon basin is the world's largest rainforest and the most biologically diverse place on Earth. Despite the critical importance of this region, Amazon forests continue inexorably to be degraded and deforested for various reasons, mainly a consequence of agricultural expansion. The development of novel policy strategies that provide balanced solutions, associating economic growth and environmental protection, is still challenging, largely because the perspective of those most affected- local stakeholders- is often ignored. Participatory Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) was implemented to examinestakeholder perceptions towards the sustainable development of two agricultural-forest frontier areas in the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. A series of development scenarios and a climate change scenario were explored and applied to stakeholder derived FCM. Stakeholders in both regions perceived landscapes of socio-economic impoverishment and environmental degradation driven by governmental and institutional deficiencies. Under such abject conditions, governance and well-integrated social and technological strategies offered socio-economic development, environmental conservation, and resilience to climatic changes. The results suggest the benefits of a new type of thinking for development strategies in the Amazon basin, and that continued application of traditional development policies reduce the resilience of the Amazon to climate change, whilst limiting socio-economic development and environmental conservation. ; Peer Review

7‐11 November 2010, Tenth International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection, Glasgow, UK

Published online: 07 Jul 2021 ; BACKGROUND In the European Union proteins for food are largely animal based, consisting of meat and dairy products. Almost all soy but also a larger part of pulses and cereals consumed in the European Union are used for animal nutrition. While livestock is an important source of proteins, it also creates substantial environmental impacts. The food and feed system is closely linked to the planetary and health boundaries and a transformation to healthy diets will require substantial dietary shifts towards healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes. RESULTS Extrudated vegetable meat alternatives consisting of protein combined with amaranth or buckwheat flour and a vegetable milk alternative made from lentil proteins were shown to have the potential to generate significantly less environmental impact than their animal-based counterparts in most of the environmental indicators examined, taking into account both functional units (mass and protein content). The underlying field-to-fork life cycle assessment models include several variants for both plant and animal foods. The optimized plant-based foods show a clear potential for improvement in the environmental footprints. CONCLUSIONS Development of higher processed and therefore higher performing products is crucial for appealing to potential user groups beyond dedicated vegetarians and vegans and ultimately achieving market expansion. The Protein2Food project showed that prototypes made from European-grown legumes and pseudocereals are a valuable source for high-quality protein foods, and despite being substantially processed they could help reduce the environmental impact of food consumption. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Serious games are games whose main aim goes further than pure entertainment, and they could be used in the fields of education and training with the purpose of encouraging interaction, interest and motivation of students when talking about learning. They also simulate new experiences, allowing users to be the main characters of the adventures and placing them face to face against problems and situations that require taking a decision. In order to know if a Serious Game is effective in this area, it is relevant to design adequate metrics that allow us to analyse these games and collect information about the quality of the learning process and the students in real time. With this purpose, eConfidence project is launched, funded by the European Union and whose objective is the analysis of the potential benefits of the use of Serious Games in learning, and behaviour changes in teenagers when they face different conflictive situations. In this chapter, our intention is to deepen in the quality and efficacy of this kind of games with an educative approach, developing, this way, a theoretical framework to the Serious Games in education. Subsequently, we will specify and concrete some of the metrics defined for one of the games in the eConfidence project.