Micronutrients are minerals and vitamins, such as iodine, iron, or vitamin A. Although ingested in tiny amounts, they are an essential part of our diet .

Natural enzymes are very clever molecular machines. They are the catalyst for many of nature’s chemical transformations. And the conditions they need to perform their task are rather precisely defined.

Many diseases occurring in industrial countries, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke or certain cancers are linked to malnutrition. The trouble is that one in two people in Europe is overweight or obese .

Ton Baltissen , researcher at Wageningen University and Research Centre , in the Netherlands, who works  in the Applied plant research (PPO) department, gives youris.

A solution is much needed to fight droughts and preserve crops. Researchers have now developed a device capable of checking the humidity in the soil, and releasing irrigation water as needed – just enough without wasting it .

Many people in Europe are critical of genetically modified (GM) food, due to safety concerns. A Eurobarometer survey, published in 2010, revealed that the European public tends to be worried on a “mediate level” about GM food , with people in Austria being particularly concerned.

Algae are an interesting natural resource because they proliferate quickly. They are not impinging on food production. And they need nothing but sunlight and a bit of waste water to grow on.

Most of the animal proteins found in the meat industry waste have, until now, been underutilised. The challenge is to transform such waste into food of higher functionality and added value .

Food processing of cereal and fruits creates a rather voluminous amount of by-products . The London, UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently estimated that anywhere between 35% and 50%--or 1.

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.

Increasingly, many of the plastic products we use every day are no longer based on petroleum raw material . Instead, they are made from biomass such as starch, sugar, corn and other sources that also happen to be food products.

A delicious tomato and bell pepper soup, a green bean and potato salad and a refreshing strawberry, kiwi and banana smoothy.

It began with Angela Merkel. When the former German chancellor opened the borders to refugees in 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrians and others entered. Many are now settled all over the country.

Put forty people in a room, all with a smartphone in their hand. Ask them to scan a QR code, redirecting to a set of questions like: “How much meat and eggs do you eat?” and “How often do you fly?” They will first start giggling, and speaking to each other to find their answers.

"To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 we need more investments than those envisaged by the Green Deal , otherwise we will never make it.

Even though people increasingly recognise the plastic pollution threat, we have used more plastic since the covid-19 pandemic began .

Ana, 32, loves going to the movies, is keen on theatre and takes regular yoga lessons. However, during the Covid pandemic she quit the frenzy of Madrid to settle in a remote village in Extremadura , a large Spanish rural area, bordering Portugal.

As we slowly emerge from the worst of a crisis that has destroyed lives and livelihoods around Europe and the globe, the move towards a bio-based economy and away from a fossil-fuel centered one has gained a new urgency.

Despite women playing a key role in the life of rural communities, studies show they leave their villages in greater numbers than men do. This leads to demographic imbalances and inhibits local economic and social development.

Surfing has a dirty secret: surfboard production techniques are often at odds with the sport’s eco-conscious image. Most modern surfboards are a sandwich-like construction: a polyurethane foam core – known as a blank – coated in a fibre-reinforced composite.