We all get vitamin D in two ways – from our diet and from exposure to the sun.  A lack of this vitamin puts young children at risk of bone diseases like rickets and older children and adults at risk of bone softening .

Type-2 diabetes, which has dramatically spread in the last decade, is most often associated with being overweight and suffering from obesity.

Low-cost sensors and wireless communication technologies have enabled moves towards smart homes and smart cars. Using similar technologies, scientists involved in an EU-funded project called ALL-SMART-PIGS are now developing technologies that turn pigs’ farms into smart farms .

Internet Surveillance is often associated with names like Facebook, Google or the NSA, but now also pig farmers have started to use new tools to monitor every aspect of a pig’s life.

About 20 million Europeans are subject to food allergies. Now scientists are looking at these allergies in new ways. It involves the food industry in its work and pays special attention to the link between early diets and allergy in later life .

When on April 7 th World Health Day is celebrated, most experts will be blaming insects for the rising problem of vector-borne diseases. In some parts of the world, however, these little bugs are considered a healthy and tasty source of food .

Proteins fed to livestock are typically soya-based. But growing soya takes up valuable land that could be used for human food production. And it has a heavy carbon footprint, being imported mostly from South America.

Health claims and symbols on food products could improve public health. At least, that is according to consumer researchers. But how they can best do that as effectively as possible is still a mystery.

Holstein cattle - the black-and-white dairy cows you might see in a child’s picture book - have been bred in northern Europe for hundreds of years.

Scientists have long known that high levels of cholesterol around mid-life greatly increase the risk of developing dementia 30 years later.

Food scare make authorities uneasy. In previous cases, national food safety agencies have not always known how to react , making the public wary. For example, in 2011, the German health authorities incorrectly linked the deadly E.

After personalised medicine, we are entering the era of personalised nutrition. But this approach requires testing before being applicable. This is what a new EU-funded research project, called food4me , is attempting to do.

Food’s microstructure can explain many of its characteristics—be it cake’s sponginess, bread’s crispness, cracker’s crunchiness or fruits’ inner gas and water transport system and even colour.

Fat, sugar and salt - these ingredients are often used by the food industry to enrich their products and provide us with the perfect sensual experience. Now, scientists in France are trying to reverse this trend.

The early childhood diet and that of the mother during pregnancy determines the health of a child later life. This is the claim that the EU-funded research project Early Nutrition is trying to substantiate by the time it is due to be completed in 2017.

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Now, an extensive and long-term research project aims at identifying the causes of this dramatic increase. In a study including  16.

The main concern of food producers has always been to bring safe fruit and vegetables to European plates. But now, expectations have been stepped up one notch as pressure mounted to reduce factors, related to climate change, susceptible to affect the safety of food .

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 .

The scientific community now widely recognises that salt, sugar and fat in excess in food lead to health issues . Among these are obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

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 .