Description

"Taste for Sustainability and a Green Transition"

Food production is a main cause of the accelerating anthropogenic changes in the Earth’s ecosystems. There is an urgent need for global changes in the food production systems throughout the food chain as well as a call for a significant reduction in food waste. Sustainable and healthy eating has hence become a key issue on the global scene. The provision for a sustainable green transition involves eating more plant-based foods. The question then arises if such foods, e.g., vegetables, are sufficiently palatable for the carnivorous human whose evolution has been driven by meat-eating and a craving for umami taste for more than two million years. Is green food sufficiently delicious for us to eat more of it? 

In this presentation I will describe an approach to sustainable eating of vegetables based on culinary sciences. Plant-based raw ingredients often lack the basic tastes umami and sweet and also need special attention regarding mouthfeel. I will present a ‘taste rack’ of condiments, a kind of generalized spice rack or tasting inventory, which allows most vegetables to be turned into delicious dishes by ‘umamification’ and used effectively in a flexitarian setting.

References

1.     The solution to sustainable eating is not a one-way street (C. V. Schmidt and O. G. Mouritsen) Front. Psychol. 11:531 (2020).

2.     A role for macroalgae and cephalopods in sustainable eating (O. G. Mouritsen and C. V. Schmidt) Front. Psychol. 11:1402 (2020).

3.     Design and 'umamification' of vegetables for sustainable eating (O. G. Mouritsen and K. Styrbæk) Int. J. Food Design 5, 9-42 (2020).

Ole G. Mouritsen PhD DSc is a physicist and professor of gastrophysics and culinary food innovation at the University of Copenhagen. He is an elected fellow of the Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Danish Gastronomical Academy, and Sigma Xi. He is president of the Danish Gastronomical Academy and director of the Danish national center for taste Taste for Life. He is the author of several scientific books and about 400 scientific papers and reports, in addition to being recipient of a number of prestigious science and science communication prizes. He is appointed Japanese Cuisine Goodwill Ambassador. In his spare time, he cooks, collaborates with chefs, furthers his knowledge of all aspects of food, and writes articles and books about the science of food and taste, including English editions Sushi: Food for The Eye, the Body, and the Soul (2009), Seaweeds: Edible, Available & Sustainable (2014), Umami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste (2014), Life-As a Matter of Fat (2015), Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste (2017), Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefish. Seafood for Today and Tomorrow (2020), The Science and Art of Pickled Vegetables: Tsukemono (2020).

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Meeting ID: 837 2145 6313

Passcode: Food21