Diet and nutrition play a key role in health promotion and disease prevention
Profound lifestyle changes have led to the need to consume at least one
meal away from home, thus increasing the number of people who
frequent commercial services.
It is therefore evident that food, in all its forms, has taken on a growing
role in dictating consumption trends and, for this reason, food prepara-
tion and services must be adapted to meet the consumer's new nutritional requirements.
According to WHO, planned interventions for public spaces should aim to
improve food's nutritional quality and safety (in places like schools,
workplaces, health and social-service facilities, etc.); and to ensure that
the supply of food products within catering operations, food stores,
vending machine, etc. meets dietary guidelines.
In addition, the lines of action identified by the Lombardy Region are
oriented towards promoting healthy food choices in public spaces.
It is necessary to make people sensitive to the concept of food quality,
which involves the welfare of both individuals and society as a whole,
along with the environment in which they live.
Hence,the idea of a project that, through the use of specific technologies, brings about the exploration - with a new slant - of the main scenarios of the distribution/ marketing of food:
The aim of the project is to offer services that improve consumers' overall food experience, reinforcing their ability to choose food by acting through awareness and education and by guiding them towards appropriate eating habits:
Services for catering, self-service restaurants and collective distribution
to adapt to new market demands with more numerous and problematic users. Different technological solutions can be implemented to provide better services to consumers and restaurateurs:
Services for automatic
distribution
by using the ability to profile users
through regional map services,
innovative Vending Machines can
provide safe and healthy food and
drinks, offering educational services
and customized information via
large, touch-screens.
Services for nutritional
education, play and culinary
learning for children and
teenagers
a kitchen set for children can be
built, with tools and information to
explore the world of cooking. With
this kit, one can access the nutritional-education platform where
video-recipes and edutainment
tools have been developed to help
students learn with recreational and
fun activities; the focus here is for
them to gain greater awareness of
their food habits. These same issues
can be addressed in practical activities,
such as cooking classes and
games.
Identification and
recognition of food species
the control of raw-material food
species is carried out for commercial
and health reasons. The scene of a
fish market can be shown and
explored, with a recognition system
using real-time PCR.