It is not obvious when examining a wrapped lettuce or a microwavable bowl of Chinese soup. But plastic food packaging is made of multiple layers designed to act as a barrier for oxygen or bacteria .

Seaweeds are not only tasty, but they are a source of nutrients that could be beneficial for health and wellbeing. And like terrestrial plants, seaweeds also contain significant portions of fibre that reach the colon undigested.

Lars Ove Dragsted, professor in preventive nutrition at the University of Copenhagen , Denmark, took part in a wide ranging EU funded project, called ISAFRUIT , designed to boost Europeans’ consumption of fruits and ultimately improve their health.

Peanut, egg and soy are more common food known to trigger an allergic reaction, a problem affecting around 8% of children in the EU. Intuitively, you might not list apples as causing allergic reactions.

People living in Arctic areas can be more sensitive to pollutants due to their genetics , says researcher Arja Rautio at the Centre for Arctic Medicine in the University of Oulu , Finland.

Ari Asmi talks to youris.com about the link between aerosols and global warming. His expertise stems from his previous role as coordinator in an EU funded project called EUCAARI .

Suzanne Dickson is a Professor of physiology and neuroendocrinology at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, based at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg ,  Sweden.

We are what we eat. However, little is known on how a specific dietary regime can impact the life of the elderly . Now, researchers from an EU funded project called NU-AGE are investigating the effects of the Mediterranean diet on older people.

If you can't kill them, trap them. Such is the fate that scientists are reserving to pathogenic bacteria, such as the infamous E. coli .

These were introduced in the wake of the mad cow disease scandal in the 90s'. Now, horse meat sold as beef in minced meat products and ready-made meals has revealed that traceability can only do so much for consumer reassurance.

youris.com talks to Clare Hall, social science researcher at the Scottish Agricultural College in Edinburgh, UK, about the best ways to effectively inform the public about food safety in relation to pathogens responsible for foodborne diseases.

Marek Zadernowski is a consultant, specialist in quality management and safety in a food sector, based in Olsztyn, Poland. He is a member of Polish Association of Food Technologists and a fellow of the  UK Royal Society of Public Health .

A French veterinary surgeon and former researcher at the Toulouse National Veterinary School , Philippe Baralon is the founder of Phylum , a consultancy specialised in food safety working for the food industry.

Ragnar Löfstedt is an expert on risk management at King’s College London , UK, and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Risk Research . He spoke to youris.

Mona Elena Popa, is Professor of industrial biotechnology at the  University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest  in Romania. She talks to youris.

Alex Richardson, is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention , at the University of Oxford, UK, and the co-founder of the UK charity Food and Behaviour Research.

Several hundred thousands of Europeans are affected by food borne diseases every year . Only a shift in perception of how food safety should be achieved could help avoid these illnesses.

We can blame all sorts of things on the weather. But a stomach bug?  It seems unlikely. Yet, scientists say greater quantities of rainfall and bigger storms will lead to more stomach upsets in parts of Europe.

Medical experts pointed to non-infectious diseases—diabetes, cancer and heart disease— as a ticking time bomb at a recent meeting of health experts at the European Health Forum in Gastein, Austria.

Martin McKee recently expressed his views at the 2012 European Health Forum in Bad Gastein, Austria. Can we measure the impact of austerity on people’s health? The human cost of austerity has been largely invisible because of lack of data.