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Resumo: Os sistemas de agricultura biológica são sugeridos para substituir a agricultura convencional de forma a minimizar o impacto ambiental e preservar a biodiversidade. Pretendeu-se investigar as tendências dos consumidores e os hábitos de consumo de alimentos obtidos através da agricultura biológica em Portugal e na Turquia. Foi utilizado um inquérito por questionário online. Para o tratamento de dados, foram utilizadas técnicas estatísticas básicas complementadas com uma classificação em árvore destinada a avaliar a influência de fatores sociodemográficos no conhecimento sobre este tipo de alimentos. Os resultados mostraram que os padrões de consumo são semelhantes em ambos os países, com muitos participantes a consumir alimentos biológicos, especialmente vegetais e frutas, consumindo-os na sua maioria 2 ou 3 refeições por semana. As motivações mais fortes para consumir incluem benefícios para a saúde humana e menores impactos ambientais, enquanto a razão mais substancial para não consumir é o preço. Em ambos os países as pessoas têm bons conhecimentos sobre as vantagens dos alimentos biológicos em relação aos convencionais. Finalmente, a perceção do valor atribuído pela sociedade aos alimentos biológicos foi consideravelmente maior em Portugal. Estes resultados confirmam as tendências atuais dos consumidores para fazer escolhas alimentares mais sustentáveis, motivadas pelo percecionado impacto negativo da agricultura convencional nos ecossistemas e na saúde humana. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Resumo: Introdução – O consumo de insetos é uma prática tradicional ao longo da história humana, mas o seu consumo é muito variável de acordo com a região do globo. Objetivos – Pretendeu-se investigar o nível de conhecimento sobre insetos comestíveis numa amostra de participantes de treze países. Métodos – Os dados foram recolhidos em 2021 por questionário online. Obtiveram-se 6899 respostas válidas. Para a análise dos dados usou-se análise fatorial, análise de clusters e testes qui-quadrado. Resultados – Foram usados 27 itens para medir o conhecimento, utilizando uma escala do tipo Likert de cinco pontos. Aplicando análise fatorial obteve-se uma solução que explica 55% da variância total observada. Esta inclui 4 fatores que retiveram 22 dos 27 itens iniciais: F1 = Sustentabilidade (8 it); F2 = Nutrição (8 it); F3 = Fatores de Produção (2 it); F4 = Preocupações com a Saúde (4 it). A análise de clusters produziu três grupos de participantes (indivíduos 'receosos', 'agricultores' e 'ecológicos'). A caracterização dos clusters revelou que a idade não influenciou a inclusão nos clusters, enquanto sexo, escolaridade, país, meio onde reside, área profissional e rendimento influenciaram a composição dos clusters. Conclusões – O nível de conhecimento sobre insetos comestíveis é altamente variável de acordo com as características individuais e localização geográfica. Por outro lado, a segmentação permitiu identificar 3 tipos de indivíduos, 'receosos', 'agricultores' e 'ecológicos'. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Aromatic plants have been used since ancient times, and traditionally they have been preserved through drying in order to extend their shelf life. The oldest way to dry foods, also applied to aromatic plants and medicinal herbs, was sun drying in open air. However, due to the development of industrial processing technologies, the drying methods evolved and in the present, modern technologies are used as a way to efficiently obtain the products while at the same time looking for the highest possible quality, i.e., preserving the aroma compounds (mostly highly volatile molecules) and also the possible bioactive molecules which provide additional value to the aromatic plants. In fact, there is a thin line between the aromatic plants and the medicinal herbs, which in many cases refer to the same plant. In view of this, the present chapter aims to address the drying procedures and corresponding operational conditions and their effects on the quality of dried aromatic plants. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Os insetos têm sido apontados como uma fonte alternativa e mais sustentável de proteína animal, que pode ajudar a alimentar a crescente população mundial. Devido à menor pegada e impacto ambiental, a substituição parcial da proteína animal por insetos pode contribuir para a preservação do meio ambiente e dos ecossistemas naturais. No entanto, o consumo de insetos comestíveis, embora culturalmente aceite em algumas comunidades, não é prontamente aceite noutras. Assim, este trabalho investigou o conhecimento, atitudes, hábitos de consumo e grau de aceitabilidade de insetos ou produtos derivados entre consumidores portugueses. Este estudo foi baseado numa pesquisa por questionário, realizada numa amostra de 213 participantes. Os resultados mostraram que os portugueses tendem a ter perceções corretas sobre as questões de sustentabilidade relacionadas com a utilização de insetos como alternativa a carnes convencionais. No entanto, o grau de conhecimento sobre o valor nutritivo dos insetos e possíveis efeitos na saúde é baixo. Entre os indivíduos pesquisados, apenas uma pequena percentagem indicou já ter comido insetos, consumidos maioritariamente no estrangeiro, por iniciativa própria, seja em restaurantes ou em festas/eventos sociais. Não surpreendentemente, observou-se que há uma maior relutância em consumir insetos inteiros do que em ingeri-los como ingredientes utilizados em preparações alimentares. Assim, em conclusão, a investigação revelou que os portugueses ainda apresentam alguma resistência para aderir ao consumo de insetos como alternativa a outros produtos cárneos, mas não se descarta que o mercado de produtos à base de insetos possa ser uma forma de ultrapassar a neofobia associada a este tipo de alimentos num país tradicionalmente não comedor de insetos. Insects have been pointed out as an alternative and more sustainable source of animal protein that might help feed the growing world population. Because of the lower footprint and environmental impact, replacing partly the animal protein by insects can contribute to the preservation of the environment and natural ecosystems. However, the consumption of edible insects, although culturally accepted for some communities, is not readily accepted for others. Hence this work investigated the knowledge, attitudes, consumption habits, and degree of acceptability of edible insects or derived products among Portuguese consumers. This study was based on a questionnaire survey undertaken on a sample of 213 participants. The results showed that the Portuguese tend to have correct perceptions about the sustainability issues related to the utilization of edible insects as an alternative to conventional meats. Nevertheless, the degree of knowledge about the nutritive value of insects and possible health effects is low. Among the individuals surveyed, only a small percentage indicated they had already eaten insects, consumed mostly abroad, by self-initiative, and either in restaurants or at parties/social events. Not surprisingly, it was observed that there is a higher reluctance to consume whole insects than to ingest them as ingredients used in food preparations. So, in conclusion, the research revealed that the Portuguese still present some resistance to adhere to the consumption of insects as an alternative to other meat products, but it is not discarded that the market of insect based products can be a way to surpass the neophobia associated with this type of food on a traditionally non-insect-eating country. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The food act unfolds according to rules imposed by society, influencing food choice. These factors can encompass the environment, which is related to available resources and social relationships, as well as individual history. Thus, considering the values of the social group in which the individual is inserted, the construction of cultural identities and individual differentiation, the human eater selects the available natural resources and transforms them into food for consumption as a way to meet the needs of the individual. The project "EISuFood – Study about food habits and knowledge about edible insects as sustainable foods" was developed in different countries aiming to study the different psychic and social motivations that determine people’s eating patterns, either in relation to their choices or eating habits, particularly considering these areas: health motivations ; economic factors ; emotional aspects ; cultural influences ; marketing and commercials ; environmental concerns. The project was approved by the CI&DETS Research Centre and the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, and consisted of 18 countries, from which only 16 were successful in completing all the project specifications: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, United States of America. The project team was composed of 74 researchers in global, and was directed by the Portuguese partner (chief: Raquel Guiné). The methodology included several tasks: 1. Undertake a questionnaire survey - Prepare a questionnaire purposely for this research ; 2. Translate the questionnaire to the native languages of all countries ; 3. Apply the questionnaire to collect data in all countries ; 4. Build a database with data from all countries ; 5. Treatment of the data (•Treatment considering all countries involved, •Treatment considering some countries, •Treatment for one country isolated). The results of the project were disclosed through different types of outputs, namely: – Publication of PAPERS in scientific peer reviewed journals – 36 papers (30 published, 2 accepted, 4 under preparation) ; – Publication of CHAPTERS in scientific books – 15 chapters published ; – Publication of BOOKS – 3 books published (1 in Portugal, 1 in Hungary, 1 in Switzerland) ; – Participation in CONFERENCES – 21 presentations (1 Invited Keynote, 13 oral communications, 7 poster presentations - 1 Best Porter Award) ; – Academic Works – 4 Works (1 Master Thesis, 3 Graduation works) ; – 1 website: https://raquelguine.wixsite.com/eatmot. In conclusion the project showed that: •Age significantly influenced the eating motivations, especially relating with health and emotions ; •Women and men have contradictory behaviours towards economic & availability and social & cultural motivations ; •The strongest factors determining health motivations were age and country ; •Emotional motivations were determined by living environment and country ; •For economic & availability motivations, the highest influential factors were gender and living environment ; •The Social & cultural motivations were highly variable with country, living environment and professional area ; •For environmental & political motivations, country had the highest influence ; •Marketing & commercial motivations were strongly determined by country and living environment

Alimentar-se é uma necessidade básica para todos os seres humanos. No entanto, atender a essa necessidade e ao mesmo tempo contribuir para a manutenção dos ecossistemas, ainda é um desafio. Os sistemas alimentares apoderam-se, atualmente, de mais de 30% da terra, 70% da água potável e 20% da energia, contribuindo amplamente para a perda de biodiversidade, água e terra à escala global. Este estudo investigou o conhecimento e atitudes de uma amostra de portugueses relativamente aos insetos comestíveis. Para tal usou-se um questionário, colhendo-se respostas de 213 participantes. Para o tratamento dos dados usaram-se técnicas estatísticas e o software SPSS (versão 26). Os resultados indicaram que as pessoas tendem a ter perceções corretas sobre as questões de sustentabilidade associadas ao uso de insetos como fontes alternativas de proteína. Em relação ao consumo de insetos comestíveis, constatou-se que apenas uma pequena parte dos participantes já havia comido (16%), principalmente no exterior, por iniciativa própria, em restaurante ou em festa ou evento. Além disso, verificou-se que a relutância em consumir insetos é maior se forem inteiros, mas quando se transformam em ingredientes utilizados em formulações de alimentos, o nível de aceitação aumenta. Como conclusão final, observou-se que os portugueses ainda apresentam alguma resistência em aderir ao uso de insetos como substitutos de proteína de origem animal, mas o mercado de produtos à base de insetos pode ser uma boa alternativa para contornar a neofobia associada a este tipo de alimento. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Poor diets have proven very detrimental for the maintenance of a good health, and eating excessive fast food and highly processed meals can have a negative impact on the general health status of the population. Hence, this work investigated the habits related to eating out of home and frequency of eating fast food meals in participants from six different countries. A cross-sectional descriptive study was undertaken on a sample of 4904 adult participants. For the data treatment basic statistics was complemented with tree classification analysis, using CRT algorithm. This study allowed concluding that in the sample at study the frequency with which the participants ate out of home was in general low, corresponding to four or less times per week for 71.9% of the participants, and the consumption of fast food meals was also acceptable, i.e., with a low frequency of up to two times per week in 88.6% of the respondents. The biggest differences were encountered when comparing participants form different age groups, countries or sexes, and not so much for living environment or education level. Tree classification analysis highlighted the relative importance of the considered factors for eating out and fast food meals, being country and age confirmed as the most influential factors. In the evaluated sample the incidence of eating out and fast food meals was low, which is a good indicator to globally contribute for a good health status of the participants involved in the study.

Introduction: The use of edible flowers (EF) has gained a renewed attention because of their potential for gastronomic purposes allied to their possible beneficial health effects. However, there is still a lack of information about consumer’s behaviours regarding EF and how much they are informed about these products. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the habits and knowledge about EF for people residing in three different countries, located in different parts of the world (Portugal in the Iberian Peninsula, Slovenia in South Central Europe and Brazil in South America). Methods: This is a cross-sectional study carried out with a sample of 559 participants from the three countries mentioned above. For data analysis, basic descriptive statistical tools were used complemented with a tree classification analysis, aimed at evaluating the relative importance of each of the possible influential variables (age group, sex, country, living environment, level of education and area of work/studies) on the participants’ consumption and knowledge about EF. For that purpose, it was followed the CRT (Classification and Regression Trees) algorithm with cross validation. Results: In general, the participants had already consumed EF and their use was more popular between the Portuguese participants, being the Brazilian those who used them less. Also, most of the participants, independently of the country, showed some uncertainty regarding the increase in the consumption of EF, which reveals that there are still some doubts about the use of EF in gastronomy. The classification analysis showed that country was the major discriminant for aspects like: the consumption of EF, their usage in gastronomy, the preferred way to eat EF and also for the level of awareness associated with the consumption of this kind of product. On the other hand, level of education was the most important discriminant for the information available about EF and also for the participants' opinions towards increasing the intake of EF. Conclusions: These results highlighted the importance of the country and other sociodemographic characteristics on EF eating patterns. These findings are very useful to understand the factors that most affect the participants’ attitudes towards the consumption and knowledge regarding EF. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Carrots are rich in many bioactive molecules, which provide health benefits for the human body. Among these are carotenoids, vitamins, saccharides or phenolic compounds like anthocyanins and others. However, it is well known that when carrots are ingested fresh they provide the highest bioactivity, and the processing operations such as boiling, frying, freezing, drying, among others, induce some chemical and structural changes that may diminish the bioactivity of the compounds present. Furthermore, pre-treatment operations, like cutting or bleaching are also known to influence the quality of the food products. For example, the thermal pasteurization of carrot juice influences some vitamins and carotenoids. Also, the drying of carrots to incorporate into dried formulae greatly imparts the anthocyanins’ content. Hence, the objective of the present chapter was to present some recent findings about the influence of processing operations on the properties and bioactive compounds in carrots. To achieve this purpose, different pre-treatments and processing operations are discussed as to their effects on some typical carrot products. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Introduction: The transition from secondary school to university is associated with many changes, at the social and surrounding influences’ levels, which may be a risk factor for unhealthy lifestyles. It is known that the years spent at the university may be associated with poor eating habits, with levels of fast-food consumption higher than desirable, possibly low intake of fruits and vegetables and breakfast skipping, among others. Objective: This study investigated some eating habits in a sample of students frequenting higher education establishments in the Centre of Portugal. Methods: It was carried out a questionnaire survey of self-response to investigate some of the eating habits of the participants. The questionnaire was applied after all ethical issues were guaranteed and after approval by the ethical committee. The number of valid questionnaires obtained was 670. Results: In the sample evaluated, most of the students revealed satisfactory eating habits, with significant differences between age groups, the area of studies and the practice of high competition sport. A considerable percentage of the participants, 40.8%, ate 5 meals per day and only 0.6% ate less than 3 meals per day. Only 6.6% of the participants indicated that usually do not eat breakfast. In general, the participants’ breakfast included milk (54.0% of positive answers), bread (45.8% of positive answers), cereals (32.7% of positive answers) and coffee (23.9% of positive answers). Regarding lunch, 30.1% of the participants ate soup, 28.4% consumed vegetables, 28.2% ate pasta, 21.6% fish, 16.0% potatoes, 2.5% yoghurt, 15.5% soft juices, 4.3% juices, 23.6% salad, 10.4% chips, 58.2% meat, 38.5% rice, 27.8% fruit, 9.4% a sweet desert and 44.9% drank water. Conclusions: The results pointed to the necessity of improving educational programs which can contribute to improve university students’ eating habits. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Introduction: Edible flowers (EF) constitute a source of some bioactive compounds and are very useful to step up the appeal of food. The use of EF for gastronomic purposes has a long history in some cultures but more recently it has expanded in most countries being particularly appreciated by some chefs who use them both for flavour intensification and decorative purposes. Objective: The objective of this study was to characterize the use of EF in gastronomy. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive investigation was undertaken using a questionnaire developed for the study, which included some questions about consumption habits and others about the knowledge relatively to EF. The sample included 123 individual residing in Costa Rica, aged between 18 and 66 years old. Results: The results revealed that 74% of the participants already heard about EF and 45.5% have already eaten them. EF are appreciated particularly for salads and decoration of dishes due to their taste, aroma and decorative ability. The frequency of use, however is low, since they are eaten sporadically by 89.3% of the participants and only 26.8% admit they use EF in their culinary practices. It is important to consider the possible risks associated to their consumption, such as pesticides or toxicity, and 96.7% consider that there is not enough information about EF. Only 25.2% of the participants state that there are risks associated with the consumption of EF, and these recognize both types of risks, pesticides and toxicity. Conclusions: The marketing of EF is expanding in modern gastronomic trends, with restaurants playing important roles on the chain of EF consumption. Still, the home preparation of recipes including EF is scarce and sporadic. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion