There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

The State of Food and Agriculture

The UK has passed legislation that introduces the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change (The Climate Change Act 20084). The act requires Government to set carbon budgets, which are limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the UK for consecutive five year periods. 
Models analysed in IPCC AR4 have a range of 0-60% for an AMOC decrease over the next 100 years. The RAPID-WATCH 26˚N observations provide the only continuous measurements of the AMOC strength and vertical structure, and are thus a vital monitoring tool for this key climate variable'.
Analysis of the PSMSL data set, reviewed by scientific panels such as the IPCC, inform studies of impacts of climate change on both national and international levels (e.g. UK Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP), UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), UK Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Review, Charting Progress and Charting Progress 2, IPCC Working Group II).

Climate change impacts

The development of sustainable renewable polymers from natural resources has increasingly gained attention from scientists, engineers as well as the general public and government agencies. This review covers recent progress in the field of renewable bio-based monomers and polymers from natural resources: terpenes, terpenoids, and rosin, which are a class of hydrocarbon-rich biomass with abundance and low cost, holding much potential for utilization as organic feedstocks for green plastics and composites. This review details polymerization and copolymerization of terpenes such as pinene, limonene, and myrcene and their derivatives, terpenoids including carvone and menthol, and rosin-derived monomers. The future direction on the utilization of these natural resources is discussed.

Progress in Renewable Polymers from Natural Terpenes, Terpenoids, and Rosin

This research aimed to study consumers’ trends and the consumption of foods obtained through organic farming in two different countries, Portugal and Turkey. A questionnaire survey was used, applied through internet tools as a result of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. For the treatment of data, we used basic statistics complemented with a tree classification, aimed at evaluating the influence of sociodemographic factors on the knowledge about this type of food. The results showed that the consumption patterns are relatively similar in both countries, with many participants consuming organic foods, especially vegetables and fruits, consuming them mostly two or three meals per week. The strongest motivations to consume organic foods include benefits for human health and lower environmental impacts, while the most substantial reason not to consume is the higher price. It was also found that in both countries, people have good knowledge about the advantages of organic foods over conventional ones. Finally, the perception of the value attributed by society to organic foods was considerably higher in Portugal. These results confirm the apparent trend of making more sustainable food choices, which is motivated by the perceived negative impact of conventional agriculture on ecosystems and health.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/12/6/1385/pdf?version=1654833904

Comparative Study about the Consumption of Organic Food Products on Samples of Portuguese and Turkish Consumers under the COVID-19 Pandemic Context

In Portugal a very popular desert consists in whey cheese with pumpkin jam. However, these two products are only sold separately, being necessary to join them together so as to obtain the desired product. Having in mind that the production of a combination of these two products would be a potentially interesting field for new food commercializing, studies were conducted on the development of this new food product. This, was complemented with a sensorial evaluation, so as to perceive how consumers accepted this new product, and with a consumer study, in order to understand how the consumers would react when faced with the offer of such a new product. The sensorial evaluation was performed by means of a descriptive analysis, with a panel of 17 tasters, of which 12 were women and 5 men. The parameters evaluated using five points hedonic scales were: homogeneity in colour, homogeneity of the product, milk aroma, intensity of aroma, intensity of taste, salty taste, milk taste, sweetness, consistency, granules. The consumer study was performed by applying questionnaires to 100 persons, of which 57 were women and 43 were men. With respect to the results obtained, the sensory analysis to the product developed showed a good global appreciation, indicating that this product could be successful. Regarding it’s acceptability by consumers, the preliminary results are encouraging, since the major part of the enquired liked the combination of whey cheese with pumpkin jam.

Food product development: whey cheese with pumpkin jam

The search for new sources of plant protein for food and animal feed is driven by an increasing demand in developing countries and the interest in healthy alternatives to animal protein. Seeds from 23 different wild legumes belonging to tribes Gallegeae, Trifolieae, and Loteae were collected in southern Spain and their total amino acid composition was analyzed, by reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), in order to explore their nutritional value. Protein content in the seeds ranged from 15.5% in Tripodium tetraphyllum to 37.9% and 41.3% in Medicago minima and Medicago polymorpha, respectively. Species belonging to tribe Trifolieae, such as Melilotus elegans and Trifolium spp., showed the most equilibrated amino acid composition and the best theoretical nutritional values, although all species were deficient in sulfur amino acids. The amino acid composition of the seeds from some of these legumes was characterized by high levels of the anticancer non-proteic amino acid canavanine This amino acid was found free in the seeds from some of the species belonging to each of the three tribes included in the present work. Astragalus pelecinus in tribe Gallegea, Trifolium angustifolium in tribe Trifolieae, and Anthyllis vulneraria in tribe Loteae have 3.2%, 3.7%, and 7.2% canavanine, respectively. Seeds from Anthyllis vulneraria, Hymenocarpus lotoides, and Hymenocarpos cornicina have the highest contents in canavanine overall. In conclusion, the seeds from some of these legumes could be used for human consumption and for feeding animals because they contain protein of good nutritional quality. These plants could be useful in domestication and breeding programs for production of new varieties with improved nutritional and functional properties. In addition, some of these species may be of interest as a source of the bioactive compound canavanine.

/pdf/nutritional-characteristics-of-the-seed-protein-in-23-iwy87in7.pdf

Nutritional Characteristics of the Seed Protein in 23 Mediterranean Legumes

Some Developments Regarding Functional Food Products (Functional Foods)

Bakery products are an important sector of the food industry globally and are part of the regular diets of many people. Texture encompasses many product characteristics and plays a pivotal role in consumer acceptance. This review focuses on the studies that evaluate textural properties in a set of bakery products, either using instrumental texture measurements or sensorial evaluations. A search was conducted on scientific databases, and selection was based on some eligibility criteria, resulting in a total of 133 articles about the textural properties of bakery products. Of these studies, the majority reported only instrumental analysis of texture (62 out of 133), and a minor number of studies reported only sensorial analyses (n = 14). Still, there was an expressive number of studies in which both methodologies were used to assess the texture of the bakery products (n = 57), i.e., instrumental measurement complemented with sensory evaluation. The results showed that most studies focused on bread (37%) and cakes (33%). With respect to instrumental texture analysis, most tests were TPA (texture profile analysis), and the most commonly used probe was a cylinder disc with a 75 mm diameter. Instrumental tests usually determine textural properties like hardness, cohesiveness, chewiness, and springiness. Regarding the sensorial analyses of texture, mostly descriptive tests were used (72%), particularly sensory profiling, with a lower number of studies performing discriminating (18%) of preference/acceptance tests (10%). In most cases, untrained panels were used, with a most common number of panelists equal to ten, and the most representative evaluated textural attributes were hardness, cohesiveness, chewiness, and springiness. In conclusion, this review provides insight into the methods used to assess the texture of bakery products and which characteristics of these products should be on focus. Furthermore, it was verified that both types of methodologies are complementary in evaluating texture for these types of food products.

/pdf/textural-properties-of-bakery-products-a-review-of-2faco586.pdf

Raquel Guiné

Papers

Comparative Study about the Consumption of Organic Food Products on Samples of Portuguese and Turkish Consumers under the COVID-19 Pandemic Context

Food product development: whey cheese with pumpkin jam

Nutritional Characteristics of the Seed Protein in 23 Mediterranean Legumes

Some Developments Regarding Functional Food Products (Functional Foods)

Textural Properties of Bakery Products: A Review of Instrumental and Sensory Evaluation Studies