Food@School

'School canteen drenched
with golden sunlight 3'
by Edmund Yeo
under a CC license

Balanced nutrition is a challenge in most places in the world. Even where food is plenty. School meals and school food, in general, is an important factor for raising a healthy new generation. This applies independent of the actual socioeconomic environment, i.e., irrespective of whether children come from families with limited access to food or have family backgrounds lacking healthy standards in nutrition. Thus, the food supply system in schools (dictated by any "Food@School" policies) needs to aim towards two objectives:

• Offer affordable food providing a wide set of nutrients, at a reasonably sufficient quantity in a balanced fashion, and
• Train children into becoming responsible food consumers, actively seeking for nutrition balance and healthy choices.

As you may be guessing, those are not easy objectives for a variety of reasons, including - in no particular order:

• Elevated costs in providing free or subsidised food
• Limited know-how and/or resources needed to design, promote, implement (and enforce?) healthy school lunches
• Limited know-how and/or resources to support healthy food choices through education
• Low(er) priority at the policy agenda
• Insufficient or unclear regulatory framework
• (Possibly) limited continuity and support of such schemes at the home environment
• Low acceptance by the children of the options offered to them (consumer perception concerns do not only apply in adults!)

Luckily, not all the reasons above apply in all cases. But even having a single of those being applicable can have a detrimental effect in the outcome of any Food@School policies. The good thing is that by addressing any single one of those, the situation in the others is likely to improve - a kind of positive spill-over effect!

Mother Jones (amongst others) has recently featured an inspiring article on Jessica Shelly, the director of food services for Cincinnati's public schools. She, not only managed to meet regulatory guidelines for the formulation of school lunches (such as those dictating the use of whole grains) at a very low cost per meal but effectively altered children's attitude towards healthy food employing simple things such as:

• allowing kids to tailor their meal (salad bar)
• seeking for new recipes that would be part of a healthy and balanced diet but also appeal to kids
• listen to what the kids have to say on the food they consumed through a kind of customer satisfaction programme (all kids can do that and some have been doing it very, very successfully!)
• encourage teachers to join kids while eating, thus using them to set an example of food choices
• changing the name of dishes to make them more marketable

I'm sure that one could also add several more bullet points on the list, such as:

• Involve kids in designing meals or individual food products
• Enhance food science and nutrition training throughout school
• Take advantage of the culture-food links
• Use special events, campaigns, competitions, etc. to keep kids engaged on food and nutrition aspects
• Try to engage the kids' families on balanced nutrition issues

Clearly, not all such changes would be feasible in every school or region. In fact, many schools do not have restaurants but rather canteens - and, even canteens may be a luxury for some places. But Jessica Shelly's moves can be adapted as needed and then adopted in most places, even in a slow and incremental pace.

I'm positive that they will deliver promising results!

Consumer perception: A tool without instructions?

'Pick yours' by esti
under a CC license

My belated, yet warmest, wishes for a Happy New Year to us all!!!

Holidays is a good thing. It gives you time to relax, spend more time with the people you like and love (OK, sometimes it also forces you to spend time with people you don't like so much :-) and change your focus altogether for a little bit.

Lately, there is the story in the news about researchers from Valencia (Spain) and Oxford (UK) on "The Influence of the color of the cup on consumers' perception of a hot beverage". The paper has published back in August 2012 in the Journal of Sensory Studies and during the last few days has been featured in major blogs and news sites such as POPSCI, Discovery News, etc.

In the study, the researchers offered a panel of 57 volunteers cups of a hot chocolate beverage and asked them to rate them against - amongst others - flavour and sweetness. Cups were plastic and coloured red, orange, white and dark cream on the outside (white inside). The results indicated that the testers rated the beverage of higher chocolate flavour when they drank from the orange or dark cream cups. Sweetness and chocolate aroma were less influenced by the colour of the cup, but still the dark cream ones got a better score than the others. As the authors pointed out, that can help catering professionals tune the aesthetics of the plateware or packaging (or possibly dining environment, altogether) in order to enhance consumer experience.

That is not the first time it is shown that factors beyond the sensory aspects of a foodstuff affect consumer perception. A strawberry mousse, for instance, tastes better when server on a white dish. And, as Betina Piqueras-Fiszman from the Polytechnic University of València has demonstrated, the weight of a dish, where a meal is served on, has an impact on the expected food density and expected satiety from the consumer.

Clearly, appearance is a tool for achieving or boosting consumer acceptance. But is it also a tool to be used in achieving a better diet, that is, eating less and/or eating healthier? Possibly, yes. Hot chocolate served in an orange cup, for instance, may require less added sugar to become acceptable. Make that an orange coloured clay mug, which is much heavier than a plastic cup, and it may give the consumer the feeling of a denser drink. In that way one may achieve better consumer satisfaction while keeping the impact on the total daily calorific intake under better control. Still though, a cup of chocolate will always be a cup of chocolate, will always have more calories than a cup of unsweetened tea, etc.

Such an approach may be worth considering, especially in cases where a good and balanced nutrition is a target, e.g., in school meals. There, plateware of the right weight and colour could have a diet-support function, on top of making the life of pupils more colourful. After all, kids have demonstrated that they do have an opinion on what they eat! (I'm referring to Martha Payne, a 10-year-old girl from Scotland, who had a blog with comments on her school meals). The same goes to canteens, often found in or around busy workplaces (and they are not always cool). If you think about it, the associated cost should not be out of reach and the impact on the environment should be lower. Adding colour to plastic dishes/ cups/ etc. adds a few cents more in a recurring way, while switching to normal ones adds an initial purchasing cost plus the cost of washing them to be re-used.

One thing that bothers me, however, is whether the effect of the eating environment, plateware included, is absolute or relative. In other words, does the feeling of enhanced sweetness appears only to consumers that make the switch to cups of different colour or does it fade over the time one uses the same cup? There is certainly something there but there may be also, a lot more to learn.

That certainly reminds me that the safest and most time-proof way to a balanced diet is to train oneself to the "right tastes" so that the appealing food would need to have an excess of sugar or salt and it would include fruits, vegetables and wholemeal products.

Dinner table: Food for thought

'Dinner table settings'
by joeywan under a CC license

For the part of the world that is lucky enough to have secured a minimum amount of food on a daily basis, the dinner table may feel like the reasonable place to end the daily routine.

In fact, though, the dinner table is much more than that. It's the place to talk with family and friends. It's the place to listen to others. It's the place to get to know people. It's the place for all emotions, from sorrow to happiness and from anticipation to excitement. It's the place to secure a deal, explore arguments, brainstorm on ideas, announce plans and... well... eat.

The latter, quite rightfully, sounds like stating the obvious. However, what I'm really trying to say is that, food-wise, the dinner table is challenging in many different ways. While, normally, we tend to focus either on the social dimension of eating or on satisfying the physical need to eat, getting things in order for a dinner table (or any meal, in fact) is not that simple a process. Indicatively, consider the following elements:

• General food safety; are the raw materials safe, has the food been handled properly, etc.
• Food allergens; is the food OK for the people that will consume it with respect to allergens, does one of them has an allergy on one of the ingredients used, is it likely to have allergens present through contamination, etc.
• Nutrition; does the meal provide what is needed for all its intended consumers, does it provide variety under the "balanced nutrition" rationale, etc.
• Special dietary needs; are they known for each of those consuming the meal, are cultural or religious-based dietary needs also considered, are they properly addressed altogether, etc.
• Acceptance; are the meal elements acceptable at the sensory level, i.e., do they look nice, do they have an appealing flavour and taste, etc.
• Novelty; is the meal intriguing or interesting for those who will consume it (not necessarily in the sense of 'food innovation')?

'Table' by anthimeria
under a CC license

Don't consider that list as exhaustive. It's not. Not even close. What is interesting is that each of the points above is close to being a science on its own.  And what is challenging is that for each of the points above there is still much to investigate and learn (at the scientific level).

Most of you will argue that although we normally eat on a daily basis in our lives the food we consume rarely causes problems. That is a fair point. But:

• The reaction of people to unsafe food depends on their overall health status and the factor that makes the food in question unsafe. Pathogens like listeria monocytogenes tends to be more of a concern for immunosuppressed individuals and pregnant women but there are food-borne pathogens that much more aggressive. Contaminants of chemical or biological nature may or may not lead to acute effects, depending on the type of agent, the amount consumed, etc. The impact of the consumption of unsafe food on human health and well-being in the long run is not always very easy to calculate. Besides that, most food-related incidents tend to be downplayed (e.g., an upset stomach or a single diarrhea incident is normally ignored) so the exact impact of non-safe food is likely under-estimated.
• Food allergy is not that rare. It 's impact on the individual depends on the level of sensitisation for the allergen in question and the amount consumed but in some cases it can be life-threatening.
• Good nutrition is a standing challenge. Nutrient needs vary depending on both genetic factors, age, health status, life-style choices and cultural background. Beyond that, there are people with special dietary needs, who need to abstain from certain ingredients or require more or less from specific ingredients. For instance, coeliacs must follow a gluten-free diet. To make things more complicated, the availability of each nutrient is a dish depends on several factors, including the nutrient form in the food, the food matrix (i.e., where is the nutrient contained), the presence of other ingredients (e.g., a nutrient may become partially "out of reach" to the digestive system in the presence of specific ingredients).
• Acceptance for both "normal" and "novel" foods is a relatively new niche for studies under food science. There is still a lot to learn on how people make choices for food and towards what result. It is not always the question of whether the food smells, tastes and "feels" good, though. Cultural background, habit or past personal experiences, amongst others, can make people like or detest certain foodstuffs.

I'm not suggesting or implying that the person who cooks dinner should get a food science degree. I'm merely pointing out that there is really a lot to learn for something many of us normally take for granted.

Language twists: the case of N-(L-α-Aspartyl)-L-phenylalanine, 1-methyl ester

A few days ago, a case involving Asda, a UK supermarket chain, drew my attention. As mentioned in the FoodNavigator, Asda and Ajinomoto, a producer of food ingredients, entered a court battle on the use of the word "nasty" for, amongst others, aspartame (actually, aspartame was indirectly referred to as one of the "hidden nasties"; Asda produces private label products claiming to contain "no nasties").

It seems that the first court ruling allowed Asda to use a generic term as "nasty" for foodstuff, thinking that it does constitute a specific "malicious falsehood". However, after Ajinomoto's appeal, a second ruling supports that the word "nasty" carries multiple meanings, one of which is damaging to aspartame products.

Although the case seems to be in progress, it is certainly interesting to think of the possible results. Asda claims to be using terms that echo consumers' concerns. So, the "no nasties" claim actually translates to the fact that the product labelled as such contains none of the ingredients consumers tend to think as "nasty". Interestingly, that approach requires little or no scientific backing. On the other hand, "nasty" carries a negative meaning, which might affect the choice of consumers that may think that the term is based on scientific evidence.

The food sector is, unfortunately, not empty of controversy cases. The case of aspartame is recorded as one of them. Having said that, aspartame is an approved sweetener (also known as E951 in Europe) and that means that there is sufficient scientific proof that it is safe to use within the limits and for the uses specified. By the way, Asda is not disputing aspartame's safety.

What worries me is that the case is, in a way, a question of whether free speech can apply in the market environment. Indeed, the consumers have preferences, which are not always based on scientific facts and, historically, have not always been right. So, is it ok to mirror those beliefs on products?

Well, in a way that has been done before. Think of the various certification signs that appear on food products. Some of them certify qualities that have little to do with the actual safety or nutritional content of the food. For instance, think of examples like the PDO labels, which indicate that a product was made in a specific geographical area or the TSG label that guarantees the "traditional character" of the product. Those labels often attract the consumer to the benefit of products that carry them. The difference with the "no nasties" label is that those signs are awarded after a certification process.

So the question translates: Could there be a certification process for the "no nasties" (or other equivalent phrases) sign? In theory, why not? The national legislations across Europe allow for claims such as "no preservatives", "no artificial colourings" ,etc. A similar trend applies to foodstuffs with natural flavouring. However, it would be safe to assume that the industry behind the ingredients concerned will react, possibly on the basis of established safety or on the basis of offering choices and health benefits to specific consumer groups.

The key here, as always in the food world, is for the consumer to be in position and understand what a claim on the packaging means. And that key principle applies - IMHO - to all claims, legally established or not. It is no coincidence that Regulation (EC) 1924/2006, regarding the nutrition and health claims on foodstuffs, requires food manufacturers to ensure that their claim is understood by the average consumer and, also, to provide additional relevant advice together with the claim.

Some say that the food labels of the future will have a lot of things to read. But then again, making usable information available to the consumer could be a way to improve the food choice mechanism and the food-associated wellbeing. Time will tell, I guess....