NUTRIMAD 2018 Congress (IV World Congress of Public Health Nutrition and XII Congress of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition)

29/11/2018Uncategorized

24th - 27th October 2018, Madrid (ES)

The XII Congress of the Spanish Society for Community Nutrition (NUTRIMAD) was this year held jointly with the IV World Congress of Public Health and Nutrition in Madrid (ES). EuroFIR member, Universidad CEU San Pablo, organised this worldwide congress, which included topics such as education for better nutrition, social aspects of food, the Mediterranean diet, physical exercise, emotional balance and food, community nutrition for an ageing society, food sustainability, healthy gastronomy, hydration, and community living and eating.

The congress was attended by almost 500 people representing physicians, nurses, dietitians, journalists, researchers, chefs, educators, the food industry and government. Prof. Dr Gregorio Varela-Moreiras, Professor of Nutrition at the CEU San Pablo University and co-president of NUTRIMAD 2018 declared, “we wanted to create a high-quality scientific program highlighting the national and international research activity that will also serve to lay the foundations for future research”. The Congress concluded with the Declaration of Madrid on nutrition for the XXI century, a consensus document that offers nutritional guidelines to promote healthy habits among the population as a whole that should serve as an inspiration for the whole society. Prof. Dr Carmen Pérez-Rodrigo, President of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition (SENC) and co-president of NUTRIMAD 2018, commented, “this Declaration aims to create a strong compromise to achieve a better quality of life, a happier society and a positive, active and healthy aging in the present and future generations”.

Symposium: Food Composition in the Mediterranean

19/11/2018Uncategorized

Saturday 27th October, Madrid (ES), by Maria Kapsokefalou (AUA, GR)

EuroFIR co-organised this symposium, which was chaired by EuroFIR Director, Maria Kapsokefalou (AUA, GR). Speakers included another EuroFIR Director (Helena Soares Costa, INSA, PT), Aida Turrini (former EuroFIR Director, CREA, IT) and Angela Morena Martinez (EuroFIR Member, University of Granada, ES), and they presented the history and current state of food composition databases (FCDBs) in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Strengths,weaknesses, and the challenges FCDBs face in each of these countries in meeting demands from research and in policy development were also discussed. One of the recommendations arising from these discussions was the need for expanding the Mediterranean Network (MeNe) to include other EU and non-EU countries in the Mediterranean Region, which would
create synergies in the region to meet the challenges.

GCRF workshops

29/10/2018Uncategorized

With Quadram Institute Biosciences (QIB, UK), and supported by funding from BBSRC and MRC, EuroFIR AISBL has organised several workshops to support cutting-edge research that addresses challenges faced by developing countries. More specifically, the aim of these workshops was to assess status, provide training and build capacity in the use of standardised methodologies for food composition and food intake methods. The first workshop was held in Rabat (Morocco, 8-10th May 2018) with follow ups in Belgrade (Republic of Serbia, 18-19th October 2018) and Ras Jebel (Tunisia, 5-8th November 2018, picture - right). The workshop in Morocco established an overview of current status and identified gaps and needs. The follow up workshops were specific to clusters of countries with similar types of diets (i.e. Iran, Iraq and Pakistan [Serbia] and Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania [Tunisia]) and addressed some needs, specifically training related to compilation of food composition data, including food description, value documentation, sources and quality of data and recipe calculation. Trainers from EuroFIR were Paul Finglas, Mark Roe and Angelika Mantur-Vierendeel as well as Maria Glibetic and her colleagues
at IMR during the workshop in Belgrade.

The project is led by QIB (UK) and run in collaboration with the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region Office. Partners include EuroFIR and University of East Anglia (UK) as well as organisations from Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Kuwait. Global Challenges Research Fund (UK Research and innovation) is a £1.5 billion fund set up by the UK Government in 2015 to strengthen capacity for research, innovation and knowledge exchange in the UK and developing countries through partnerships with UK researchers.

15-17 October 2018, Belgrade, Serbia.

To promote better understanding of the food systems approach in Central and South Eastern Europe countries region, CAPNUTRA, a Capacity Development in Nutrition Network in Central and South Eastern Europe (www.capnutra.org), in close collaboration with the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (www.fao.org/europe/en), organised a three-day Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets in CSEE countries, which also included training on collection of food consumption data and opportunities to strengthen regional networking.

The main objective of this symposium was to raise awareness on a sustainable food system approach for improving diets and nutrition. It was attended by 42 participants from 26 countries, representing governments, research and academia as well as European and United Nations Agencies, such as EFSA, FAO and UNICEF (26 oral presentations; 20 posters presented). Speakers included food composition experts, health and nutrition specialists, and scientific officers, who presented different thematic areas of food systems, as well as participants from the CSEE region.

The final agenda is available here.

aquimer

18/10/2018Uncategorized

27th June 2018 (Brussels, Belgium)

In the opinion of an expert panel brought together by AQUIMER, there is an urgent need to increase awareness of contamination in aquatic products at international, governmental, industry and consumer levels. We also need better evaluation methods for micro-plastics to protect fish and seafood food safety and determine the risks ingestion poses to human health.

This topic is important for EuroFIR AISBL, a beneficiary in SEAFOOD^TOMORROW (http://www.eurofir.org/our-resources/current-projects/seafoodtomorrow, seafoodtomorrow.eu), which aims to validate and optimise innovative and sustainable solutions and improve the safety and dietary value of seafood in Europe, and Sevda Nur Urkan attended to learn more about the issues posed by micro- and nano-plastics in seafood.

Ocean microplastics issue and bio-based plastics solution was organised in the framework of “bring EUROPEAN MARITIME DAY to your country”, supported by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE). It provided an opportunity for policymakers, civil society, scientific academia, and food industry representatives to discuss the wider issues of plastic contamination in the food chain as well as the role of potential alternatives, such as bio-based plastics, in tackling microplastics pollution.

AQUIMER organised an expert panel to highlight the impacts of interfering with ecosystems processes composed of experts with different perspectives on the issue of marine microplastics. Tarub Bahri (Fishery Resources Officer, FAO) presented the 2017 FAO report on microplastics in fisheries and aquaculture available here and underlined that, although seafood products are a source of microplastics in the human diet, for now at least intake seems to be negligible. However, impact of plastics on food safety and human health in the longer-term is unknown

Science and project management workshop

12/07/2018Uncategorized

Food Forum 2015

12/07/2018Uncategorized

EuroDISH recommendations for the proposed Food and Health Research Infrastructure in Europe - DOWNLOAD
Karen Zimmermann, Stichting DLO-WUR, NL
GloboDiet to support dietary surveillance and research on diet-related health, safety and societal challenges in Europe - DOWNLOAD
Nadia Slimani, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), FR
Exposure modelling at the international level -DOWNLOAD
Jacob van Klaveren, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), NL
HighTech Europe
Kerstin Lienemann, DIL Brussels, BE

Food Forum 2017

12/07/2018Uncategorized

Food Metrology & Food composition workshop

12/07/2018Uncategorized

Food Metrology & Food Composition, 14th October 2017, Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Agenda - DOWNLOAD
Paul Finglas (EuroFIR & QIB) , Developing a food matching tool to link food composition and consumption data as part of a future multidisciplinary European Food, Nutrition and Health Research Infrastructure - DOWNLOAD
Susanne Westenbrink (RIVM), Assessing data quality in food composition databases - DOWNLOAD
Isabel Castanheira (INSA), Karl Presser (Premotec), Claudia Zoani (ENEA), EuroFIR GAMA wiki for Analytical Measurements - DOWNLOAD
Bent Egberg Mikkelsen (Aalborg University), Digital devices & smart technologies - a case study of European behavioural food labs in the Richfields research infrastructure design study - DOWNLOAD
Karl Presser (Preomotec, CH) FoodCASE database management system for food composition and consumption data - DOWNLOAD