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Floriade 2022 Growing Green Cities

By Robbert Dijk

In the development of Almere there is a central theme of growing green cities. This theme tries to search for solution for food, green environment, energy production, and health. The high point of this theme will be presented at the Floriade in 2022 during the World Expo.

2022 is still a long road ahead, but the path has already started. Here are three projects that are happening already.

Green carpet to the Floriade area

The projects start in 2017 and can be seen by the Waterlandseweg, the road to the entrance of the World Expo. What you can see will be six special plants in “shop windows” that have each a theme. The themes will be water, biodiversity, green material, health, air quality, and circular economy.

NS- audio tour

The railway track between Almere and Lelystad is voted as the most beautiful track of the Netherlands. To enhance the experience, an app has been developed for passersby to listen to an audio tour that is voiced by Erica Terpstra between the two train stations.

Bio bench

Not all projects have to be big to be innovative, like the bio bench. The bio bench consists of 100% organic material. These materials are dried water plants, grass, and potato starch. The idea behind this is to use material that is considered waste and recycle it to a new product, resulting in less waste and a city without garbage.

Sources: https://www.floriade.nl/nl/

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Five shocking food documentaries

by Damian Stempels

Food  is, of course, popular. People are not only interested in eating food but also watching food documentaries. National TV stations are broadcasting cooking shows and competitions, but also platforms like iTunes and Netflix have a wide range of food shows and documentaries. From the world’s best sushi to baking the best cupcakes and from the different eating habits around the world to a peak in a top restaurant, everything is possible. However, food documentaries can also cause a lot of commotion. There are a number of programs/documentaries that reveal shocking footage and/or facts about our food. In this article we will list 5 documentaries that are not fun but surely interesting.

Food Inc.

Probably one of the most (in)famous food documentaries at the moment. Food Inc. wants to show that the picture of a small American farm with a couple of happy cows, green grass and a silo  that you see on a lot of packages is a fairy tale. It shows farms with thousands of animals in small barns and farmers that are forced to produce more for less. It explains how it is possible that you can buy a hamburger for one dollar. It is shocking and distasteful but it makes you think…

Supersize me

Another well-known american documentary. In 2003 Morgan Spurlock wants to experience how bad McDonalds food is. So he eats and drinks only McDonalds food for one month, stops exercising and limits the number of steps to 5000 (the average distance an american person walks). The result is shocking: he often is depressed, he gains 11.1 Kilograms, his heart deteriorated and his cholesterol increases enormously.

King Corn

This American documentary wants to show the power of the big industry on farms and the agricultural sector. We see how more and more small farms are taken over by big companies and how the industry causes all kinds of economical, environmental and social problems.

Keuringsdienst van waarde

Keuringsdienst van waarde or KVW is a Dutch TV-program that not necessarily makes shocking documentaries but it does investigate products we use/consume on a daily basis. They take a close look at packages and ingredient lists of all kinds of products and they often discover that products are made with different ingredients, on a different location or on a different way than we think.

Zembla: The Monsanto method

In 2015 The Dutch TV program “Zembla” made a documentary about Monsanto. They show how Monsanto tries to get more and more power by obtaining patents on as many vegetable seeds as possible. Among other things you see how they invented an easy to harvest broccoli and how they try claim this broccoli exclusively. The “Monsanto Method” is controversial and is being criticised for many years already, so we see a lot of worried politicians and scientists.

Food Inc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smk2xq2l3Ig

Supersize me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAnCOHCVjyU

King corn: http://www.kingcorn.net/

Keuringsdienst van Waarde: http://keuringsdienstvanwaarde.kro.nl/

Zembla: http://zembla.vara.nl/dossier/uitzending/de-monsanto-methode

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Five achievements of NGOs in the Dutch food sector

by Damian Stempels

The Dutch food retail sector is dominated by a select number of companies. Basically, there are three big companies: Ahold (35% market share), Superunie (29%), and Jumbo Group (18.4 %). Compared to other western countries, the Dutch retailers are seen as slow with changing to a more sustainable food sector. According to Food Practices in Transition by Gert Spaargaren, this is mainly because of their focus on price competition. So if the change doesn’t come from  the retailers, where does it come from? In the Netherlands. NGOs are important actors behind sustainable changes in the food sector. In this article we will discuss five big achievements of NGOs in the Dutch food sector.

Campaign against green logo Albert Heijn 1980s

In the 1980s, Albert Heijn was under pressure from NGOs and in the media because they used a green logo for house brand products. They claimed that these products where more sustainable. This was being criticized because they used it only for their house brand and not for other brands they sold. Another reason was that there were no clear criteria for applying the logo. Albert Heijn had to stop using this logo and started to use more recognizable logos like the organic logo.

Introduction Beter leven logo 2007

In 2007 the organisation “dieren bescherming” introduced the “beter leven” (better life) logo. The logo was introduced because the NGO saw that a lot of farmers didn’t dare to take the step to switch to organic meat production. This was because farmers were afraid they would become to expensive and therefore wouldn’t sell anything. The beter leven logo made it easier to become more sustainable because it works with a three star system. Every star has specific requirements for every type of animal. So for example: pork with one star means that the pigs have more space, toys to play with, they are not castrated and the transportation to the slaughter house is shorter. In this way the farmer can choose to farm more sustainable in an easy way and the consumer can see how sustainable a products is by looking at the number of stars.

Ban of white veal in all supermarkets 2008-2009.

Animal rights NGO, Wakker Dier, started a campaign against the sale of white veal, they claimed that the production of white veal was not animal friendly. In the end, all supermarkets stopped selling white veal, a big success for Wakker Dier.

More cows outside 2016

In 2016 “milieudefensie” organized a petition for more cows outside in the meadows instead of inside in mega-stables. They plead for a system that calculates the number of cows a farmer is allowed to have on the basis of how much land he has. They collected over 50.000 signatures and presented them to the Dutch Government.

Plofkip

One of the most recent NGO campaigns is the campaign against “plofkip” (a Dutch term used for fattened chicken) by Wakker Dier of the past couple of years. This is a very remarkable campaign because Wakker Dier is directly confronting large retail chains like Albert Heijn, McDonalds and KFC. They do this with TV-commercials showing horrible pictures and videos of fattened chickens and naming companies that sell this kind of chicken. It is an direct way of campaigning but it seems quite successful as a lot of companies have stopped selling “plofkip”.

Food Practices in Transition, Changing Food Consumption, retail and Production in the Age of Reflexive Modernity. By: Gert Spaargaren, Peter Oosterveert and Anne Loeber

Distrifood: http://www.distrifood.nl/service/marktaandelen

Dierenbescherming: https://www.dierenbescherming.nl/zoeken/page/7

Wakker Dier: https://www.wakkerdier.nl/campagnes/successen

Milieudefensie: https://milieudefensie.nl/veestapel/nieuws/meer-dan-50-000-mensen-vragen-kamerleden-om-een-gezonde-veehouderij-met-koeien-in-de-wei

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Shaping the System

By Gerian Streutker

It is well known that the way we produce, consume, and handle food in comparison to fifty or a hundred years ago has changed. We have higher safety standards, want to consume healthy foods, and we want sustainable food. Fifty years ago this was not the thought that went through the minds of people. So what resulted in these changes in the food system?

We can explore the changes in the food system by using the transition theory. This theory was first conceived around 1990 to deal with deadlock situations. The idea was that to get out of these situation a transition needed to take place. Imagine reaching a wall and using a transition to break through and continue on. A tool used often in this theory is the multi-level perspective as found below.

The multi-level perspective makes use of three dimensions: the socio-technical landscape, the socio-technical regime, and the niche innovations. The regime refers to the current food system. Here you have your major players, like Unilever and Ahold, who dominate the system and have the power to initiate a transition. In the landscape are the influences that can’t be affected by the regime players. These include things like rising energy prices and disasters, but also the opinion of the customers. Niche innovations are certain developments that are not part of the regime yet. Tractors are an example of a niche innovation fifty years ago that got developed to the point that it was incorporated into the current food system. How do these explain changes in the food system of the years?

After the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 people wanted to create a food system that would always produce enough food so no one would ever have to starve again. This resulted in a regime that lasted about fifty or sixty years. As new people came into the world, ideas on food changed. People did not only want to simply feed the world population, they also wanted this food to be sustainable so that the people from the future would not suffer from the production done now. This resulted in pressure coming from the landscape to change the system. At the same time there were niche innovations that incorporated sustainable production manners which stood out of the crowd of innovations. This gave pressure from the bottom up for the regime to change. Having these two forces pressure the system resulted in a transition to a food system that focuses on sustainability.

In basis the food system we have now developed over years of transitions. A hundred years ago, people would have separate small farms producing mostly for themselves. Fifty years ago, that changed to a system where mass production was the main focus. And nowadays we are trying to produce sustainably and environmentally friendly. As the situation changes, so does our idea of producing food and this results in transitions in the current food system to a new system more accustomed to our needs.

Source: Spaargaren G., Oosterveer P., Loeber A. (2012). Food practices in Transition. Published by Rouledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-88084-8

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5 Amsterdam Food Festivals You Must Visit

by Elena Moffatt

Everyone loves food, and who can resist going to a festival with your closest friends and enjoying something together?  We’ve compiled a list of 5 Amsterdam food festivals you can’t miss this year!

Rollende Keukens

Date: May 24-28, 2017

Location: Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam

Website: http://rollendekeukens.amsterdam/

A delicious food truck festival with nearly every type of cuisine.  From German sausages to Jamaican jerk chicken, and even Dutch poffertjes, you can’t go wrong at this festival.  Even the entry is free!

Bacchus Wijnfestival

Date: March 10-12, 2017

Location: Duif, Prinsengracht 756, 1017LD Amsterdam

Website: http://www.bacchuswijnfestival.nl/

A winter wine festival!  Throw those winter blues away and get excited fort he Bacchus wine festival inside one of Amsterdam’s beautiful churches: Duif.  Tickets are available online for €12.50.

Taste of Amsterdam

Date: June 2-5, 2017

Location: Amstelpark, 1083 Amsterdam

Website: http://tasteofamsterdam.com/

A restaurant food festival where some of the best chefs in Amsterdam are excited to have you try their creations!  From delicious food to tasty drinks, there’s even music to dance the night away.

We Love Food

Date: February 24-26, 2017

Location: De Kromhouthal, Amsterdam Website: http://welovefood.nl/

We love food, do you? Food, drink, and inspiring performances!  There’s something at this festival for everyone.

Chocoa Festival

Date: February 25-26

Location: Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam

Website: http://www.chocoa.nl/events/chocoa-festival/

A chocolate festival? Yes, a chocolate festival!  Learn the process from the bean to the bar and try all the chocolate pairings! In addition to chocolate, you can also discover new flavours of wine, coffee, and craft beer.  Yum, sign me up!

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What is Slow Food?

by Elena Moffatt

Slow food: a movement that has gathered a foothold in society and continued to grow since its conception.  Carlo Petrini founded this organization in 1986 in Italy and is now a global movement that now has over 80,000 followers in more than 850 local chapters.  It started as a way to defend and protect regional traditions, to increase gastronomic pleasure, and to appreciate a slower pace of life.  Slow Food has been promoted as an alternative to fast food.

The organization relies on three pillars to keep clear objectives: good, clean, and fair food.  Slow Food followers believe that everyone deserves food that tastes good, that the food people is produced in a way that does not harm the environment, and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.

So, now what? Here’s five easy steps to start eating slow food!

Replace processed foods with whole foods

This is as easy as going to the grocery store and not buying that package of cookies or frozen pizza.  Buy whole, fresh foods instead!

Eat clean food

Clean food means that the farming, animal husbandry, processing, marketing, and even consumption needs to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, and safeguard the health of the consumer and the producer.

Eat local

If your food comes from local producers it means that it has less distance to travel to get on your plate.  The food you buy from, say, a local farmer’s market will likely be much less processed than what you would buy at a big grocery store.  You’d even be supporting your local economy – win-win!

Share the slow food dining experience

Slow down your day and invite a friend over to cook with you, it doesn’t have to be chef level quality cooking by any means.  Cooking food yourself allows you to appreciate the finished product and will make you savour it.

Get involved

Get involved with your local Slow Food chapter!  Either donate or become a member on the Slow Food website linked below.

Sounds neat, right?  Do you think slow food is the future? Let us know what you think in the comments!  For more information on the Slow Food organization, check out their international website: http://www.slowfood.com/

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Five food bloggers to watch in 2017

by Sjim Krop

In 2016, we had our fair share of food blogs. This trend growing every year, and this comes most likely that people want to know more of their food, where it comes from and to give their family a variety of meals. To find out which food bloggers to watch, the decision was made to look for the food blog awards of 2016. Various categories were chosen in which food bloggers could win a prize.

The categories in which prizes were given out are the following: food blog of the year, best special interest food blog, best food vlogger, best blog design, best food photo, best food blogger cookbook, and best dish.

In a first glance we see that most of the food bloggers are women. This trend is against the predominant culture of chefs, who are predominantly men. The best food blog of the year is called “keuken liefde” or kitchen love in English. This food blogger, Annemiek Verweij, is a Mom whose goal is to let you try new recipes, ingredients, cooking techniques, and new flavours, smells and colours. Her day to day recipes are available for every meal of the day and more. The variety of the blog is very important and she uploads new content every day. My personal favourite is cooking within the seasons. This can dramatically reduce the cost of your groceries. Like her slogan says, her website is addictively delicious.

The best special interest food blogger of 2016 is Vivian Reijs. Her blog focuses on healthier, happier and thinner. Her online address is vivonline.nl. In her day to day life she works as an orthomolecular food coach. This is someone who looks for the relation between food and health issues. This to prevent and treat a variety of conditions. This is why her biggest passion is to help and motivate people to find a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

In the category best food vlogger, we have uitpaulineskeuken.nl. She vlogs about her recipes as well as creating written ones. This is particularly useful when you have a tablet and just want to tag along while making the exact same dish. From food to special drinks, and even a whole bbq so you can always show off a bit.

What’s today’s food blogger without their own cook book? In this category, the food sister won the national prize. Their book is focussed on losing weight, which is particularly useful after the holiday season. Their book comes with an 8 week diet which includes menus for every day of the week and a shopping list. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed in The Netherlands. They get published on a regular basis in the “Libelle”, a nation-wide magazine for woman and their book has sold over 20,000 copies this year. For now the site is completely free and even has weekly update available with new recipes and menus.

Last but most surely not least is the best dish of a food blogger of 2016. This was created by Dorien van der Meer of Doortjeskeuken.nl. The simpler style of the blog makes it easy for the eyes, and the search for the recipes also doesn’t take long. She also has a lot of useful tips on her blog to recreate her recipes.

All and all a pretty impressive list. However personally I would have liked to have a male view of food in this list of top food bloggers. Since most of the food is allocated to health and thinning I would personally be satisfied with a simple burger, or in my case a grilled cheese.

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What is an aquaponics system, and how can it change farming in the cities?

by Sjim Krop

First off, what is an aquaponics system? This term can be divided into 2 subsections: aqua culture, which is the cultivation of freshwater fish for human consumption, and hydroponics, which is the cultivation of plants in a recirculating water system. In an aquaponics system, there is an exchange between the two systems. The plants clean the water for the fish by taking out the fish faecal matter and urine, which the plants use as fertilizer. The result of this is a reduction of fresh water used for the growth of fish in comparison to conventional fish farms. This reduction of fresh water can be as high as 90 percent. Which would make it suitable for use in a small environment, like for example on the top of a flat building.

So how can the aquaponics system change farming in the cities. How do we farm in the cities currently? Farming in the city is not a really popular thing in the Netherlands currently. We of course have small kitchen gardens in the backyard or a small plot of land inside a residential area that can be used as such. However this will never be enough to feed the city’s population. This is mostly due to scale and that these gardens are tended by untrained persons.

However there are some startups in the Netherlands in the major cities of the Hague and Rotterdam. In the Hague, we have the Urban Farmers startup group. This is located on top of the old Philips building. The total production space is about the size of 5 football fields. Below they hold tilapia fish in tanks. On top they grow different types of vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, and paksoi. The water of the fish is filtered and the fish’s excrement are used as fertilizers for the plants. The facility currently produces 45,000 kilos of vegetables and 19,000 kilos of tilapia filet.

In Rotterdam they have a similar system with the same type of vegetables and fish. However here they have another ingenious invention called a bioreactor. This is necessary because of the ammonia given off by the fish which the plants cannot absorb. In this reactor bacteria turn ammonia into nitrate which the plants can absorb, this is a normal compound of fertilizer. However it does have a downside because antibiotics cannot be used to treat diseases.

All and all a very welcome development for a green and thriving city. These systems will have to grow and expand to really make an impact. The impact in the future can be tremendous, especially due to the exponential growth of the world population which will mostly live in the cities. It will change farming in the cities because it takes less space, less pollution, less water than conventional methods, which is always scarce and unwanted in urban areas.

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What is Food in Transition?

By Robbert Dijk

On January 31, Operation Food will organize an event about food in transition. On that day, a lot of information will be provided, and this article will help you prepare and understand the subject that will be discussed during the event.

The first question that you might think of is: what does transition mean? Transition, in short, is a huge but slow societal change of how a functional system will be built in a new way. This is very abstract, but looking at the current food system, it is evident that the mass production of food to create low food prices is undergoing a transition. It does not mean that mass production is bad, but instead of doing things better, the transition is looking at doing better things. It can be said that transition is a collection of different innovations that fit together, follow each other and as a collection will change the system.

An important concept that comes with transition is the multi-level perspective (Geels, 2002), as can be seen in the image below. The multi-level perspective shows an overview of the system in three levels: the sociotechnical regimes being the dominant system, and the landscape and niches being the levels that pressure the current dominant regime to change.

More information about food in transition will be provided on January 31 during the event. Time and place can be found on the the Operation Food Facebook page.

Source image:

http://doc.utwente.nl/58685/1/Geels02technological.pdf

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What is organic?

by Tjade Looman

Organic (biologisch in Dutch) is a term used so often that people have stopped really understanding its meaning. Of course, this is a slight exaggeration but what does organic actually mean? Does it change when you cross continental borders? How do you know if something is truly organic? All fair questions and in this post, we are going to shed some more light on the topic.

In short, organic products are products that are produced according to rules and regulations set by the governing body of the market. In US, this is done by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and in Europe by the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority). The rules set are very similar. They oblige the farmer in using natural methods related to fertilization, land management and pesticide use. Another main pillar is the preservation of biodiversity and use of renewable resources. Important differences for the consumer are that with organic farming, no synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can be used. The use of GMO in Europe is already strictly regulated but a core identity of organic food is that no GMO produce is used in production. The perception that no pesticides are used in organic farming is false, these pesticides just have to have a natural origin. The aim of organic is to give the consumer a product that is as close to nature as possible on a genetic and environmental level.

But how do you know if something is truly organic? There has always been a debate on if you can truly know if a product is organic. How can you prevent cross contamination? How can you assure that produce that is produced in foreign countries is 100% organic? And these questions can be hard to answer. European rules write that to be organic fields need to be treated organically for three full years before the crop can be named organic. However, neighbouring fields can use as many different pesticides and as many pesticides as the farmer wants. Wind, rain, and insects can transport these to the organic field and pollute it. The margin of this cross contamination however is not a fixed number and is hard to predict. The second problem is dealt with by strict import regulations and cross border monitoring, but again, fraudulent practices can be very hard to notice, farmers have to do a lot to be legally allowed to carry the organic label as this process has to provide confidence in the end product.

Hopefully this article gave you a better understanding of what makes something organic and which challenges the organic industry faces. It’s important to remember that one system is not good or bad per se; there are good and bad farmers in both conventional and organic farming and honest and dishonest practices in both conventional and organic farming. As a last writer's note, educate yourself and make your own choice!   

GMO regulation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32003R1829&from=EN

USDA organic handling: https://www.ams.usda.gov/publications/content/organic-production-handling-standards

European organic regulation: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32007R0834&from=EN

Import reg US : http://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/green-living/organic-certification/requirements-for-organic-products-imported-into-the-use

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New Year, New Trends

By Robbert Dijk

Happy new year! A new year brings new changes and opportunities, maybe you’ll start a (new) business or maybe you’ll graduated or….

With a new year come also new food trends. Here are three potential trends that can be expected in 2017 and stood out to me:

Healthy Comfort Food

Consumers are going to choose a midway between eating healthy and eating unhealthy fast food. A simple solution for this, is to provide comfort food with lots of veggies. A fast food chain that already implemented this trend is Eatsa.

Link: https://www.eatsa.com/  

The butcher is back

To push back the rise of the vegetarian options, the trend called “butcher-to-table” is gaining popularity.  This means that butcheries become also restaurants. An example of this trends is the butcher shop Parts and Labor.

Link: http://www.partsandlaborbutchery.com/

Something else than Kale

The trend that you are being healthy when eating kale is on its down way. There are many other options to eat healthy vegetables and reducing food waste. These alternatives are seaweed, beet greens, chard, turnip greens, mustard greens and carrot tops.

Want to eat seaweed that taste like bacon? The company Sea More Food has it:

https://seamorefood.com/iseabacon/

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Baking with Elena: Peanut Butter Cookies

by Elena Moffatt

Recently I’ve been experimenting with some new peanut butter cookie recipes.  I find it challenging trying new recipes because the cookies tend to turn out either too dry or too crunchy.  I really like my cookies to be a little crisp on the outside but with a nice chewy centre.  Of course, you can bake whatever recipe longer to give them a crunch if that’s what you prefer.  These cookies came out a little dry, but oh so rich.  I think next time I might add a little less flour to compensate for the dryness.

The recipe called for both smooth and crunchy peanut butter.  I only had smooth on hand so I doubled up with that.  I also omitted rolling the cookies in extra sugar before baking – I figured the extra sugar would make them excessively sweet!  Please enjoy this recipe and tell me how you like it!   

15g (1/2 cup) butter, room temp

133g (1/2 cup) peanut butter

133g (1/2 cup) crunchy peanut butter

150g (3/4 cup) cane sugar

100g (1/2 cup) firmly packed dark brown (cane) sugar

1 egg, room temp

1 tablespoon honey, a strongly flavored honey like buckwheat is best

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

160g (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 175C (350F).

Blend flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside

Beat together butter and peanut butters until well combined.

Add sugars and beat until fluffy.

Add egg, honey, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

Add flour mixture and mix just until blended.

Roll balls of dough in white sugar before placing on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. (bake longer for crunchier cookies, shorter time for chewier)

Do not over bake.

Recipe from: http://www.restlesschipotle.com/crispy-chewy-old-fashioned-peanut-butter-cookies/

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A2A2 milk in The Netherlands

by Jan Meijer

You might have heard about it already, the A2A2 milk is available in the stores in The Netherlands. But what is A2A2 milk and where does it stands for? In this article we'll give you some more information about this new milk trend.

People all over the world consume milk, this can be from goats or sheeps but in the western countries most of the people consume cow milk. Milk consists of three parts, cream (fat), whey and milk solids. Let's go more into detail about the milk solids, in fact the solids are composed of many kinds of proteins, these proteins are made up of long chains of amino acids. One of these proteins is known as the 'Beta Casein'. Thousands of years ago a mutation has been occurred in the acids of this so called Beta Casein protein, this mutation caused to produce a peptide that is called BCM7.

Pretty much all the cows in Europe and North America carry this peptide. So the cows that carry this peptide are called A1 cows.

The new  milk is produced by a cow that is called a A2A2-cow, which means that both father and mother cow are A2 and don't carry this BCM7 peptide. The A2A2 milk does not have a different taste but as researches have shown, A2A2 milk is easier to digest, like goat milk for example, the reason for this better digestion is because the molecules in this protein are smaller.

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Taco Bell is coming to The Netherlands

by Jan Meijer

Are you a big fan of Mexican food? Then you might be happy with reading this article. The big fast food chain Taco Bell is on his way to the Dutch market. The American chain wants to open more than 50 restaurants in the coming 10 years. The first restaurant will probably open in the beginning of 2017 in Eindhoven or Amsterdam.  In America there are already more than 6100 restaurants of Taco Bel.

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A beautiful picture of an aquaponic system. Want to know more about this system? Read this article that we wrote about UrbanFarmers: http://operationfood.tumblr.com/post/152897377370/urban-farmers-in-the-fresh-revolution

or visit them! https://www.urbanfarmers.nl//en/farms/#tour

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Unilever talks about the sugar  in the pasta-sauces

By Marjolein Buth

Why is there sugar in red pasta sauce?

Willeke: “Fresh tomato contain naturally occurring sugars, about 25% of the tomato consist out of sugar this type of sugar has a number of important nutrients.”

Anton: “The process of making tomato sauce starts with peeling and removing the pits from the tomato, after they are boiled. Due evaporation, the  natural sugar contain increased to 70 – 80% . this amount can not be stated on the labels due European legislation. The process continues with increasing the pH level to 4.1, it has an effect on the taste of the sauce it becomes a bit more sour. The pasteurization process is need for food safety requirements, it does not eliminate all  bacteria, fermentation and fungi. This will be done by adding acid citrus juice.”

Sugar increases the shelf life of a product, right?

“That is true that sugar increases shelf life, but this amount is not that what it is used for. It should have a small effect on the shelf-life because sugar increases the taste after the acid has been added."

Does it have something to do with the ripening of tomatoes?

Anton: "I visited on a tomato farm in Badajoz, Spain where our tomatoes for are produced. The tomatoes  are harvested at maximum maturation, after which the green tomatoes are removed. One harvest may be more acidic than the other harvest. "

Can the sugar not replace it with something else?

Willeke: "Sugars can also have an effect on the viscosity of a product. The viscosity, degree of viscosity of a product affects the taste. This makes the replacement of sugar is not so simple. "

Anton: "Sugar has a water binding capacity, which affects the texture of the sauce. Therefore it makes for a good mouth smoothness . Stevia  gives it a different mouthfeel , it feels dry when you eat pasta sauce with stevia.

We, at Unilever chose  for a process that ensures safety. As consumers, we have quite a strong tendency to find sweet taste. Acid is not very appreciated in general,  taste is compensated by sugar. Think of taste sweet-sour in food. Sugar has also affected how the sauce looks, it proceeds on shine. Simply replace sugar from one moment to another is not possible therefore the product as a whole needs to be changed. "

An interview with chef Anton Rinsema and nutritionist Willeke Goossens both employed by Unilever.

http://nederlandvoedselland.nl/artikel/unilever-over-suiker-in-de-pastasaus