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The difficulties of the portuguese urban towns to be supplied with staple food caused a deep escalation of prices and diverse moments of generalized hunger in the most underprivileged layers of our society during the Great War. From the need to study these harmful effects in a circumscribed geographic area, this article addresses the «question of subsistence» within the community of Setúbal, then the third city with the highest demographic index in the country and characterized as a working and fishing region. From the institutional point of view, the present study will emphasize the inoperative measures of the City Hall within the framework of the 'war economy' and exemplify the difficulties that a social solidarity institution such as Misericórdia de Setúbal experienced. Among the impacts addressed, it will be analyzed the intense social upheaval generated by famine, that was marked by collective assaults on farms and commercial establishments, by strikes and by anti-interventionist protests of a «working class volcano» that erupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the end of the 18th century, the food supply has been continuously reconfigured to meet livelihood requirements in the Paris metropolis. The food supply prerogative, which used to be a prominent responsibility of governments, was gradually scaled down to general interest controls. Private, increasingly opaque interests now govern the city’s food supply. Widespread privatization was made possible by a range of factors, including the agricultural, industrial, and market revolutions. Nowadays, the production and consumption areas are linked solely by the pursuit of maximum economic profit: a monopoly of private groups rules the urban food system, under distant and minimum control from the public authorities. The production, distribution and consumption thus appear isolated and independent from any spatial context. Our interdisciplinary research results from work which gathered academics from the fields of biogeoscience, geography and urban history. This work links the availability of a resource (foodstuffs being traced by one of their main constituents, i.e. nitrogen) and the terms according to which a given society manages them. On the basis of the socioecological trajectory of these two variables, we outline two possible directions for the future of the Parisian food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, as part of a national sodium reduction strategy, Canada published sodium reduction benchmark targets for packaged foods; however, no evaluation of this policy has occurred. The objective was to evaluate changes in the sodium content of packaged foods, identify categories reduced in sodium, and determine the proportion meeting Health Canada's sodium reduction benchmarks. This was a cross-sectional analysis of Canadian packaged foods in 2010 and 2013 ( n = 10 487 and n = 15 394, respectively). Sodium content was obtained from the Nutrition Facts table. Overall, 16.2% of food categories had significantly reduced sodium levels. The greatest shifts in the distribution of sodium within food categories occurred in imitation seafood (mean ± SD, mg/100 g; 602 ± 50 to 444 ± 81, 26.2%, p = 0.002), condiments (1309 ± 790 to 1048 ± 620, 19.9%, p = 0.005), breakfast cereals (375 ± 26 to 301 ± 242, 19.7%, p = 0.001), canned vegetables/legumes (269 ± 156 to 217 ± 180, 19.3%, p < 0.001), plain chips (462 ± 196 to 376 ± 198, 18.6% p = 0.004), hot cereals (453 ± 141 to 385 ± 155, 15.0%, p = 0.011), meat analogues (612 ± 226 to 524 ± 177, 14.4%, p = 0.003), canned condensed soup (291 ± 62 to 250 ± 57, 14.1%, p = 0.003), and sausages and wieners (912 ± 219 to 814 ± 195, 10.7%, p = 0.012). The proportion of foods meeting at least 1 of the 3 phases of the sodium reduction benchmark targets slightly increased (51.4% to 58.2%) and the proportion exceeding maximum benchmark levels decreased (25.2% to 20.8%). These data provide a critical evaluation of changes in sodium levels in the Canadian food supply. Although progress in reducing sodium in packaged foods is evident, the food industry needs to continue efforts in reducing the sodium in the foods they produce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study describes the frequency of use of different forms of nutrition marketing in Canada and the nutrients and conditions that are the focus of nutrition marketing messages. Prepackaged foods with a Nutrition Facts table ( N = 10 487) were collected between March 2010 and April 2011 from outlets of the 3 largest grocery chains in Canada and 1 major western Canadian grocery retailer. The nutrition marketing information collected included nutrient content claims, disease risk reduction claims, and front-of-pack nutrition rating systems (FOPS). We found that nutrition marketing was present on 48.1% of Canadian food packages, with nutrient content claims being the most common information (45.5%), followed by FOPS on 18.9% of packages. Disease risk reduction claims were made least frequently (1.7%). The marketing messages used most often related to total fat and trans fat (15.6% and 15.5% of nutrient content claims, respectively). Limiting total and trans fats is a current public health priority, as recommended by Health Canada and the World Health Organization. However, other nutrients that are also recommended to be limited, including saturated fats, sodium, and added sugars, were not nearly as prominent on food labels. Thus, greater emphasis should be placed by the food industry on these other important nutrients. Repeated data collection in the coming years will allow us to track longitudinal changes in nutrition marketing messages over time as food marketing, public health, and consumer priorities evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]