The food technology expert and pioneer in Spain in food dissemination, Miguel Ángel Lurueña, stars in this new episode of Stay to eat. Doctor in Food Science and Technology and agricultural technical engineer, he is the author of the blog Gominolas de Petroleum and has published Que no te líen con la food and Del grocery al hypermarket, both with the Destino publishing house.
With this specialist we talked about how our way of shopping and eating has changed in recent decades, with all the positive and negative things that this has entailed. Lurueña talks about the influence of socioeconomic and cultural level on access to a more or less healthy diet, about the existence of marginal neighborhoods that are authentic food deserts or about fatphobia.
The conversation addresses everything from education in the tastes of the little ones to how networks have led to the proliferation of food tribes. This expert warns of the mental health risks of some kids’ obsession with the gym, bodybuilding and eating a lot of meat. Also about the behavior of those who are constantly aware of the ingredients and nutrients that any food contains, “to the point that they do not want to go out with friends because they know that they will have dinner at a hamburger restaurant, which would be an attack on their body and mind.” health”.
Lurueña also warns of the importance of being cautious with supplements: “Many times we take them thinking that they are not going to harm us because they are natural, but in reality we do not know what we are taking, in what dose, or if it has other compounds, and that can cause us to suffer adverse effects. In a medicine we know this because the active ingredients are isolated, because the side effects have been studied and there is medical supervision, something that often does not happen with supplements.”
He also reflects on the awareness that resources are finite and warns that this will lead us to look for alternative nutrients. “Many people fear that it is something imposed and that they will prohibit us from eating carme, but the problem is that what is going to impose these habits on us are circumstances; climate change and the lack of resources, not the legislation or the de facto powers, as if it were a global Machiavellian plan to manipulate us.”
During the talk he reviews the most terrible crises related to food safety and places in first place that of adulterated rapeseed oil, which “marked a before and after in the control of food safety”, that of mad cows or of Belgian chickens, and explains that today Spain and Europe have exemplary food security. He also gives us some tips to interpret food labels and to proceed correctly with hygiene in the home kitchen.
