How to stimulate large groups of people to make healthier and more sustainable food choices? As a scientist, I find this question intriguing. The focus of attention is not on the individual consumer’s behaviour, but on the food system this consumer is part of. This system provides the context in…
The first text processor that I worked with has barely anything in common with those of today. You could type, edit and delete texts and it was possible to save and print files. The developers knew that their product at that point wasn’t complete yet. Yet, it was still a…
Throughout my career in the world of applied research, I have always worked at the interface of various disciplines. In my current job as Food Informatics researcher at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, this situation remains unchanged. With my technical and analytical skills, I have the pleasure of working with…
It’s nearly time for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This new European privacy legislation will come into force for all Member States on 25 May 2018. While I do believe that this is excellent legislation that attempts to guarantee the privacy of citizens, it has significant consequences for scientific…
Why does one person have an apple for their afternoon snack, while someone else has a slice of pizza? As nutritional scientists, we are finding out more and more about what people eat within a single day. We also know that context is king. Where you are, who you are…
The key to a long and healthy life is a balanced and healthy diet. Thanks to biomedical research – scientific research in the field of medicine – we are now well aware what a healthy diet needs to include as part of a healthy lifestyle. If every consumer followed the…
The emergence of big data and open data, calls for the development of a digital research infrastructure in order to research health, nutrition and food in Europe. But how do you develop a digital research infrastructure? Where do you begin? Who must you involve? And what added value must this research infrastructure provide? How do you make such a valuable research infrastructure sustainable and robust? In order to answer these questions, you first have to determine the core offering of the research infrastructure.
A platform for common research on food policy can be a solution for the obesity crisis in Europe. In concrete terms, this means research that gathers reliable data on nutrition, consumer behaviour and health before, during and after interventions in order to assess the effectiveness of a policy instrument.
The number of people suffering from diet-related illnesses, keep increasing in Europe. To curb this trend, the consumer behaviour needs to change. Businesses in the retail and food industry play a key role, as the onus is on them to develop products that are both tasty and healthy.
A joint European infrastructure for scientific research into food, health and consumer behaviour is being developed under the direction of Wageningen University & Research. This is in everyone’s interest – from consumers and companies in the food industry to policy-makers and nutritional experts.