The Mediterranean diet in a world context

AbstractObjectiveTo put the debate on the Mediterranean diet in context by highlighting historical and prospective changes in the level and composition of food consumption in the world and key Mediterranean countries.DesignData from FAO's food balance sheets are used to illustrate historical evolution. Projections to 2030 are presented from FAO's recent and ongoing work on exploring world food and agriculture futures.SettingInternational.Results and conclusionsMany developing countries are undergoing diet transitions bringing them closer to the diets prevalent in the richer countries, i.e. with more energy-dense foods. There follows an increase in the incidence of diet-related non-communicable diseases, which are superimposed on the health problems related to undernutrition that still afflict them. In parallel, many low-income countries are making little progress towards raising food consumption levels necessary for good nutrition and food security. Wider adoption of food consumption patterns akin to those of the Mediterranean diet hold promise of contributing to mitigate adverse effects of such diet transitions. However, the evolution of food consumption in the Mediterranean countries themselves is not encouraging, as these countries have also followed the trend towards higher shares of energy-dense foods. Possible policy responses to these problems include measures to raise awareness of the benefits of healthier diets and/or to change relative food prices in favour of such diets (by taxing fattening foods) or, at the extreme, making individuals who follow 'bad' diets, and thus are prone to associated diseases, bear a higher part of the consequent costs borne by the public health systems (tax fat people)

“The Task of Critique is to Question the Ontological Premises of our Identity”. An Interview with Axel Honneth

Axel Honneth is internationally renowned for being one of the leading political and social philosophers of our time, and is highly regarded for his work on recognition and the struggles for recognition. In this interview, he discusses his work over the past four decades, starting from the rise of his intellectual vocation to his most recent book on the sovereignty of work. The text is a transcript, revised by the author, of the dialogue Honneth had with his interviewers and the audience at the masterclass held on 24 May 2023 at the University of Trento, as part of the first series of lectures “Voices from Contemporary Philosophy”

The Effect of Hydrogen Bonding in Enhancing the Ionic Affinities of Immobilized Monoprotic Phosphate Ligands

Environmental remediation requires ion-selective polymers that operate under a wide range of solution conditions. In one example, removal of trivalent and divalent metal ions from waste streams resulting from mining operations before they enter the environment requires treatment at acidic pH. The monoethyl ester phosphate ligands developed in this report operate from acidic solutions. They have been prepared on polystyrene-bound ethylene glycol, glycerol, and pentaerythritol, and it is found that intra-ligand hydrogen bonding affects their metal ion affinities. The affinity for a set of trivalent (Fe(III), Al(III), La(III), and Lu(III)) and divalent (Pb(II), Cd(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II)) ions is greater than that of corresponding neutral diethyl esters and phosphonic acid. In an earlier study, hydrogen bonding was found important in determining the metal ion affinities of immobilized phosphorylated polyol diethyl ester coordinating ligands; their Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) band shifts indicated that the basicity of the phosphoryl oxygen increased by hydrogen bonding to auxiliary –OH groups on the neighboring polyol. The same mechanism is operative with the monoprotic resins along with hydrogen bonding to the P–OH acid site. This is reflected in the FTIR spectra: the neutral phosphate diethyl ester resins have the P=O band at 1265 cm�1 while the monoethyl ester resins have the band shifted to 1230 cm�1; hydrogen bonding is further indicated by the broadness of this region down to 900 cm�1. The monoprotic pentaerythritol has the highest metal ion affinities of the polymers studied

The Long-Term Food Outlook for India

Projections indicate that by the middle of the next century the population of India will exceed that of China, and the country\u27s rate of food consumption will increase. By contrast, Indian agricultural production has slowed significantly in the 1990s. Because the growth rates of consumption and production are moving in opposite directions, policymakers and researchers should be concerned with analyzing the food outlook for India. This study provides long-term demand and supply projections for cereals including wheat, rice, corn, sorghum, and other grains

Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) Protein Concentrates as a Sustainable Source to Stabilize O/W Emulsions Produced by a Low-Energy High-Throughput Emulsification Technology

There is a pressing need to extend the knowledge on the properties of insect protein fractions to boost their use in the food industry. In this study several techno-functional properties of a black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) protein concentrate (BSFPC) obtained by solubilization and precipitation at pH 4.0–4.3 were investigated and compared with whey protein isolate (WPI), a conventional dairy protein used to stabilize food emulsions. The extraction method applied resulted in a BSFPC with a protein content of 62.44% (Kp factor 5.36) that exhibited comparable or higher values of emulsifying activity and foamability than WPI for the same concentrations, hence, showing the potential for emulsion and foam stabilization. As for the emulsifying properties, the BSFPC (1% and 2%) showed the capacity to stabilize sunflower and lemon oil-in-water emulsions (20%, 30%, and 40% oil fraction) produced by dynamic membranes of tunable pore size (DMTS). It was proved that BSFPC stabilizes sunflower oil-in-water emulsions similarly to WPI, but with a slightly wider droplet size distribution. As for time stability of the sunflower oil emulsions at 25 ◦C, it was seen that droplet size distribution was maintained for 1% WPI and 2% BSFPC, while for 1% BSFPC there was a slight increase. For lemon oil emulsions, BSFPC showed better emulsifying performance than WPI, which required to be prepared with a pH 7 buffer for lemon oil fractions of 40%, to balance the decrease in the pH caused by the lemon oil water soluble components. The stability of the emulsions was improved when maintained under refrigeration (4 ◦C) for both BSFPC and WPI. The results of this work point out the feasibility of using BSFPC to stabilize O/W emulsions using a low energy system.European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement (No. 713679)Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)Ministerio de Economía i Competitividad (CTQ 2014-54520-P)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PGC2018-097095-B-I00

Recovery of Uranium from Seawater: Preparation and Development of Polymer-Supported Extractants

A new series of polymer-supported extractants is proposed for the removal and recovery of uranium from seawater. The objective is to produce polymers with improved stability, load ing capacity, and sorption kinetics compared to what is found w ith amidoximes. The target ligands are diphosphonates and aminomethyldiphosphonates. Small molecule analogues, especially of aminomethyld iphos-phonates, have exceptionally high stability constants for the uranyl ion. The polymeric diphosphonates will have high affinities due to their ability to form six-membered rings with the uranyl ion while the aminomethyldiphosphonates may have yet higher affin ities due to possible tridentate coordination and their greater acidity. A representative set of the polymers to be prepared are indicated below. The preparations to be developed will be from readily availab le starting materials in a minimum number of steps. The structures will be analyzed through FTIR and XPS spectra, supplementing zero point charge determinations and elemental analyses. The uranyl distribution coefficients will be determined from synthetic seawater containing 5 ppm UO{sub 2}{sup 2+} to allow for accurate analysis by ICP. With solutions having higher concentrations of the uranyl ion, adsorption isotherms and loading capacities will be determined. Polymers w ith high distribution coefficients will be evaluated with authentic seawater samples and uranyl levels of 3 ppb using radiotracer techniques. Rate studies will measure the sorption kinetics. Regeneration of the polymers after loading w ith the uranyl ion will be studied w ith a series of regenerants, including sodium carbonate, 1-hydroxyethyl-1,1-diphosphonic acid, and oxalic acid. The optimum ligand w ill be immobilized onto polypropylene, thus allow ing for its application to uranium recovery from seaw ater. The approach taken w ill be the formation of polypropylene fibers grafted with vinylbenzyl chloride using supercritical CO{sub 2} technology. The scCO{sub 2} allows the monomer and free radical initiator (benzoyl peroxide) to enter deep within the polymer to give high grafting yields. The aromatic groups can then be functionalized in exactly the same w ay that the beads were modified. Uniform functionalization is expected because the porosity of the fiber permits accessibility of the reagents. Removal of the scCO{sub 2} solvent is obviously implemented simply by reducing the pressure. Conditions that minimize homopolymer formation and any degradation of the polypropylene have been defined with maleic anhydride as the monomer and should extend to vinylbenzyl chloride

Sustaining Water Resources: Environmental and Economic Impact

Water is essential to human health and economic development due to its utilization in sanitation, agriculture, and energy. Supplying water to an expanding world population requires simultaneous consideration of multiple societal sectors competing for limited resources. Water conservation, supply augmentation, distribution, and treatment of contaminants must work in concert to ensure water sustainability. Water is linked to other sectors, and the quantity and quality of water resources are changing. The efficient use of water in agriculture, the largest user of water worldwide, via drip irrigation is described as is the use of energy-intensive reverse osmosis to supplement freshwater supplies. Efforts to manage watersheds and model their responses to severe weather events are discussed along with efforts to improve the predictability of their function. The regional competition for water resources impacts both energy and water supply reliability, which requires that nations balance both for sustainable economic development. The use of water and energy in the US is described which provides a lens through which to both rethink the interrelationship of water and energy as well as evaluate technological developments. Advances in nanotechnology are highlighted as one emerging technology. These results underscore the multifaceted nature of water sustainability, its interrelationship to energy and economic development, and the need to develop, manage and regulate water systems in a concerted manner

Analysis of the nexus between population, water resources and Global Food Security highlights significance of governance and research investments and policy priorities

BACKGROUND: Analyses of sensitivity of Global Food Security (GFS) score to a key set of supply or demand factors often suggest population and water supply as being the most critical and on which policies tend to focus. To explore other policy options, we characterised the nexus between GFS and a set of supply or demand factors including defining including population, agricultural and industrial water-use, agricultural publications (as a surrogate for investment in agricultural research and development [R&D]), and corruption perception index (CPI), to reveal opportunities for attaining enduring GFS. RESULTS: We found that despite being the primary driver of demand for food, population showed no significant correlation with GFS scores. Similarly agricultural water-use was poorly correlated with GFS scores, except in countries where evaporation exceeds precipitation and irrigation is significant. However, GFS had a strong positive association with industrial water-use as a surrogate for overall industrialisation. Recent expansions in cultivated land area failed to yield concomitant improvements in GFS score since such expansions have been mostly into marginal lands with low productivity and also barely compensated for lands retired from cropping in several developed economies. However, GFS was positively associated with agricultural R&D investments, as it was with the CPI scores. The apparent and relative strengths of these drivers on GFS outcome amongst countries were in the order: industrial water-use ˜ publication rate ˜ corruption perception > agricultural water-use > population. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded by suggesting that to enshrine enduring food security, policies should prioritise (1) increased R&D investments that address farmer needs, and (2) governance mechanisms that promote accountability in both research and production value chains. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved