Food Choices, Well-Being, and One Health

Convenors:
Maciej Kluz, School of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw, Poland
Joanna Stadnik, President of Polish Society of Food Technologists, Poland

Abstract: Fermented food products such as wine, beer, baked goods, and dairy products were developed by ancient populations worldwide, with the earliest records dating back to 13000 BC. The pioneering biotechnological process of fermentation is primarily mediated by autochthonous microorganisms naturally occurring in food raw materials. Initially devoted to extending food shelf-life for long-term storage of fruit-based and vegetable-based items at ambient temperatures, fermentation improved the microbial stability of food matrices. Humans rapidly learned that food fermentation could also offer nutritional and health benefits (e.g., providing vitamins, prebiotic/probiotic effects, and improved digestibility), increased food safety (e.g., allelopathic activity toward hazardous bacteria/fungi contaminants), and more appreciated organoleptic features (e.g., new aromas, texture, and taste). We welcome contributions from different disciplines that can offer holistic insights into the multifaceted aspects of fermented food products throughout history and their contemporary significance.

Keywords: Fermented food, Microbes, Probiotics

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Convenors:
Susanne Højlund, Aarhus University, Denmark
Nadja-Raphaele Baer, Berlin University of Medicine, Germany
Christian Bødker Gantzel, Aarhus University, Denmark

Abstract: The aim of this panel is to stimulate new knowledge about social, cultural, and historical aspects of the green transition as a practice related to everyday cooking and eating. Based on the current climate crisis worldwide, there is a strong demand for, among others, consumers, cooks, and food providers to transform their habits towards less meat and more vegetable consumption. The green transition is imperative for everyone in society. But what does it take to change habits? How do socio-cultural environments (both domestic and professional) affect the ways in which new habits are shaped? How do these unfold across time (e.g., life course) and space (e.g., in different regional contexts)? How do people integrate ideas about the climate crisis into their everyday dietary and cooking practices? How do attitudes and ideas about human and planet health, regeneration, and sustainability relate to food practices in different cultural contexts? And what paradoxes, challenges, and constraints are produced hereby?
Politicians and scientists often refer to ‘the consumer,’ assuming that changing food habits begin in the supermarket, related to presumably reflective, active choices made there. As food culture researchers, we find it necessary, though, to explore the green transition as a (pre-reflexive) practice that goes beyond the situation in retail shops. Changes in habits are related to people’s everyday lives, and their social, geographical, historical, and other contexts. There is a lack of research that sheds light on the foundations of how people interpret, adapt to, and incorporate new food and eating habits into their daily practices. The workshop will deal with filling this gap and explore empirical as well as theoretical questions that can stimulate a new field of studies, where the green transition is seen as a practice that is anchored in the kitchen and around the table. We welcome papers based on empirical studies, discussing examples and theoretical concepts that cover a wide range of the above themes. We encourage participants to work with creative ways (e.g., using audio-visual material) of presenting and facilitating discussion.

Keywords: Sustainability, Transition, Practices, Habits, Everyday life

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Convenor: Arianna Radin, University of Turin, Italy

Abstract: There is always much debate about healthy habits: eating good food, exercising, avoiding sedentary behaviour and smoking, and staying hydrated... but what about wine consumption? The scientific community is divided on this issue. The American Heart Association supports the theory that a type of polyphenol called resveratrol in red wine—the famous so-called French Paradox!—is known to be heart-healthy. Therefore, the AHA allows for 4 ounces of wine (or 8 ounces for men), making a distinction from beer, 80-proof spirits, and 100-proof spirits. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, however, drinking one glass of wine a day “caused more than 4600 breast cancer cases in women in the WHO European Region in 2018” (2020). Similarly, the World Health Organization argues that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption and that alcohol—without differentiating between wine and spirits—causes seven types of cancer. So, in one case, drinking good wine is seen as a way to prevent heart attacks, while in the other case, “reducing alcohol consumption will prevent cancers due to alcohol consumption” (WHO Fact Sheet, 2021).
While it is true that in Italy the claim that wine is not to be considered an alcoholic equivalent to others has recently been regarded as a joke and therefore quickly dismissed, it is also true that data on alcohol consumption in Europe, for example, do not take into account the differences between wine and spirits consumption, nor the different alcoholic strengths, for example, between beers in different markets.
Between prevention and wine literacy, this session is therefore intended to be an opportunity to discuss comprehensive and focused data on wine, national and international wine consumption, and health outcomes. Interdisciplinary, comparative, and/or gender-sensitive research is welcome.

Keywords: Wine, Health, Wellbeing, Health Habits

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