Editorial

Citation

Blades, M. (2008), "Editorial", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 38 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2008.01738baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Nutrition & Food Science, Volume 38, Issue 2.

I am pleased to focus Nutrition & Food Science with a coverage of unusual foods and related topics with a wealth of papers from all over the world. This special edition of Nutrition & Food Science has been given the title "International Focus on Foods". It includes not just papers related to different types of foods but also to related topics like energy required in the production of foods and food safety.

The contents of this issue include

• •

  A paper from Canada on tropical medicinal plants and their nutritional content.

• •

  Food safety practices and knowledge from Southern India which gives a important perspective on the subject and the considerations of food safety in India.

• •

  Usage of whey in fermented beverages from Iran.

• •

  A paper from Latvia on Jerusalem artichokes which can provide an important vegetable crop.

• •

  Influence of processing techniques on energy, ash etc of cashew nuts from Nigeria where cashew nuts can provide an important source of protein.

• •

  Preparation of sourdough bread using a blend of bacterial culture in Pakistan. With the increasing variety of bakery products becoming available in the UK and elsewhere this could be a tasty and novel type of bread.

• •

  Urban and rural households consumption of fresh chicken meat in Turkey.

• •

  The white stuff investigation into consumer evaluation of Scottish Celebrity Milk campaign. The "white stuff" is a more acceptable title than milk for many people especially teenagers who are being encouraged to drink more milk due to the calcium content of it.

• •

  Folate content of different vegetables and fruits from the USA. With discussions taking place about the folate content of the diet this update on the folate content of fruit and vegetables could be useful.

This gives a spectrum of papers on various aspects of food some well known and others more unusual but with an increasingly global market for foods they could be of interest to nutritionists, researchers, food producers and scientists.

Looking at food in more detail from a research and health perspective it seemed extremely important to discuss the report from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), which was published on 1 November 2007.

The WCRF report is concerned with food, nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of cancer not just in the UK but worldwide. The report is the culmination of a five year project examining research papers on diet and cancer and is a weighty document consisting of 12 chapters. The last chapter makes recommendations about public health goals and personal recommendations. Interestingly while it was covered briefly by the press in England it seems to have not to have made a great impact and when I asked people in Dublin, Portugal, London and Birmingham at various meetings most had never heard of it.

The authors of the report consider that most cancer is preventable and even taking into account inherited factors consider that the way to reduce the risk of cancer is by avoiding smoking and to consume a healthy diet, be physically active and to maintain a healthy body weight.

The main recommendations of the report are;

1. 1.

   Body fatness be as lean as possible.

2. 2.

   Be physically active as part of everyday life.

3. 3.

   Limit the consumption of energy dense foods.

4. 4.

   Eat mostly foods of plant origin.

5. 5.

   Limit the intake of red meat and avoid processed meat.

6. 6.

   Limit alcoholic drinks to two per day for a man and one for a woman.

7. 7.

   Limit the consumption of salt.

8. 8.

   Aim to meet the nutritional needs by diet alone rather than taking dietary supplements.

There are also two additional recommendation of

1. 1.

   Children should be breastfed.

2. 2.

   Cancer survivors should receive nutritional care from an appropriately trained professional.

The report is extremely useful to nutritionists and certainly the recommendations are make a number of valuable points.

Mabel Blades