Taking great steps towards the new frontiers of nutrition 

We are increasingly careful not to waste food, we prefer to buy local and it seems that greater environmental awareness is pushing us to embrace new eating habits.
In this regard, one of the most widespread and constantly increasing diets today is the vegan one. To meet the needs of this clientele, new realities have developed, such as Flower burger, the first vegan fast food in the world, one hundred percent made in Italy, or companies that produce tasty totally vegetable burgers, made with sourdough and organic flours, rich of vegetable proteins and low in fat. The common goal is to combine the concepts of goodness and sustainability.

Attention to the environment implies the problem of optimizing cultivation. Inside the University of Bologna there is the Vertical farm, a European project, where innovative cultivation technologies are exploited and studies are carried out on the production and conservation of fruit and vegetables. For example, in the isothermal chamber (the project is called Light-on Shelf-life and is financed by the Ministry of Agricultural Policies), the effects of LED light on the growth, physiology and quality of the products are studied. Another new food challenge are edible insects, which present themselves as a valid alternative for human and animal nutrition, offer advantages on the economic, social and ecological front and provide a good nutritional and protein source.

In the Department of Agricultural Sciences of the Polytechnic University of Marche, scientific studies are carried out aimed at determining the chemical and microbiological risk of these foods and the possibility of using them in food processing, increasing their acceptability and ensuring adequate information. But beyond the nutritional aspects and the indisputable advantage in terms of environmental impact, the cultural taboo remains: in a country like Italy, known throughout the world for its culinary art, the idea of consuming dried grasshoppers during an aperitif still seems very far away.