food

The science behind one of the AI pillars has an origin as unexpected as unknown: pigeons pecking for food

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Imagine a missile guided by a dove. It sounds absurd, but it happened in the middle of war: someone proposed to train them to Picute the target from a screen and thus redirect the projectile. The system was never usedbut left something more powerful than the anecdote: A way of learning based on proof, error and reward. The comparison helps to understand logic, but it is not literal: today there are no birds in algorithms; What is maintained is the idea of strengthening behaviors through signals. That logic, simple and direct, is the one that many artificial intelligence models follow. What was previously an answer conditioned by food, is now a score, a preference or human indication that the model learns to pursue. The test and reinforcement mechanism was not lost over time. In the 1940s and 1950s, the American psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner formalized that idea with his theory of “operant conditioning”: A behavior increases its probability of repeating itself if its consequences are positive. Although behaviorism was displaced by approaches focused on mental processes, its logic found a new field in computer science. Since the end of the seventies and, above all, in the eighties and ninety, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto applied it to the design of artificial agents capable of acting, receiving a signal and adjust ‘Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction’. As Mit Technology Review points outthe idea of molding behaviors without resorting to fixed rules became a useful tool to teach machines. From the 1980s, reinforcement learning began to be implemented in algorithms that explore simulated environments, fail, receive feedback and try again. They do not follow human instructions step by step: learn based on the result. This approach proved to be especially effective in tasks with clear objectives, such as games. And it was there that he gave one of his most visible jumps. Alphago’s story marked a before and after in artificial intelligence. In March 2016, he beat South Korean Lee Sedol 4-1 in a series of Go games. He succeeded by combining supervised learning of human games and reinforcement learning. A year later, Deepmind was one step further with Alphago Zero. Instead of training with human data, he started from scratch and learned playing against himself: each victory reinforced his strategy, each defeat the corregía. In 40 days he surpassed not only the human championbut also to all the previous versions of Alphago himself. Today, reinforcement learning is not only used in games; It is also used to refine the models behind services such as Chatgpt. The OpenAI system incorporates a technique known as Reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF): people compare model responses and those preferences become a signal that guides their evolution. According to Openai, this phase seeks to align the behavior of the model with the user’s intention. It does not learn explicit rules, but patterns that maximize the reward, that is, what receives better assessments. Reinforcement works, but it doesn’t work for everything. Its effectiveness depends on the signal being well defined and represents the objective well. If it is confused or poorly designed, andThe system can adopt ineffective or even problematic strategies. This has fed a scientific debate. Some biologists have indicated the paradox: Association learning is considered limited to animals, but is celebrated in AI when it produces advanced results. It is no accident that great technology have adopted this approach. More than 80 years after that experiment with pigeons, their pecks are still present in the technology we use every day. Images | Nist Museum | Google | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 Pro In Xataka | The strange case of the diminutive AI: how tiny models are taking the colors to the mastodons of the AI

The most self -sufficient countries on the planet at the food level, gathered in a surprising graphic

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Humanity has eaten what it played For thousands of years. With globalizationhe has started eating what he wants and that, together with the population increase, It has consequences. Not being able to meet the demand of some foods, Import is a necessity. But it turns out that there is a unique country in the world, a completely self -sufficient one if we talk about food. Guyana The All-Star of Self-sufficiency. In the upper graph, prepared by Visual Capitalistwe can see the 50 most self -sufficient countries in the world at the food level. It reflects seven food groups: Fruit. Vegetables. Legumes. Starchy foods such as flours or rice. Meat. Fish. Dairy. And the only country that not only complies, but exceeds the production of what its population of each of these groups needs is Guyana. It is a small country of about 815,000 inhabitants located in northern South America that has shot your GDP These last years. Partly, thanks to discovery Of great oil reserves in 2015, but before that boom, their agricultural and mining industry were the ones that pulled the car. Closing the podium. So much that it is, as we say, the only one that produces its own food in all groups, highlighting in one that does not usually highlight: starchy foods. Closing the podium, we must look at Asia. Vietnam and China are two other countries that meet in six of the seven groups. The common strong point is the production of meat and fish (Meritory in the case of China, but At the expense of half -world folders). The weak is that of dairy products. It is common in Asia, with cases as dramatic as Indonesia, Thailand, Tonga, Laos or Philippines, which satisfy 0% of their dairy consumption with the national product. To the tail … On the other side of the balance we have Armenia, Thailand and Greece. The three countries are in the group of those that meet in the production of four categories (where the vast majority of countries are found), but with low percentages in general in almost all groups and a total dependence on dairy and vegetables in the case of Thailand, starchy and, curiously, fish in the case of Greece and legumes and fish in the case of Armenia. Europe and the fruits that come through those who come out. Taking an eye on the panorama of the member countries of the European Union (Greece is an example), we see that some falter, others stand out. And vice versa. The north, for example, does not get along with the Fruit culturesomething that does stand out in the countries of the South. The key in this case is the Single market Agricultural that allows food products to circulate freely between member countries, without regulatory tariffs or barriers. More than 70% of EU’s food products is carried out between member countries, being something that ensures balance and supply even in cases of local productive problems. In Xataka | The size of the submerged economy of all countries in the world, exposed in this developer map

The food industry is living its highest price drop since 2014. There is a clear suspect: white brands

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Manufacturers in the food sector are living an interesting phenomenon. They go up Industry prices in general, Upload the CPIgo up What they pay consumers in stores when they buy food and yet The rates That applies the food industry have been in free fall for almost a year. Moreover, the sector is facing its highest price decrease since early 2014. Behind that apparent nonsense there is a clear suspect: the effect of white brands and The fight that is getting rid of supermarkets. We explain ourselves. A percentage: 3.3%. Among the many indicators that periodically publishes the INE there is one that helps us better understand a key link of trade, which connects industry with the chain of distributors that take their merchandise to stores. The so -called Industrial Price Index (IPRI) records the oscillations in the right prices in That “first stage” of “internal market”, when the articles leave the factories and do not yet incorporate other added expenses, such as transport, marketing or VAT. Your approach is different from that of IPCwhich takes into account the prices paid by consumers. The INE calculates the IPRI for large sectors every month and sometimes the indicator leaves us some surprise, as happened in June, when it showed an annual fall of the 3.3% In the food industry. What does that mean? That month food manufacturers decided to reduce their rates. Why is it important? For what that percentage means. What reveals to us is a Price drop In the food industry, an adjustment of the rates with which the products leave the factory. The most curious thing is that this fall is not the dominant tonic in the industrial sector. On the contrary. Even beverage manufacturers saw in June how their industrial prices experienced A 2.7% rise. He IPRI General registered one 0.8% rise and if We go down to detail We observed that the indicator rose in most industrial branches. It only retreated in oil refinement, the chemical, metallurgical sector … and food. The annual IPC rate, which reflects the prices paid by consumers, also It was positive: In June it rose 2.2%. If we talk about the specific IPC of non -alcoholic foods and beverages of the purchase basket, it also grew 2.8%. It matters what … And imports when. If we look back, to the context, we observe two interesting data. The first is that the price index of the food industry has already a few months adjusting down. In June he scored a variation of -3.3%, but in May he had already done -2.7%and in April 2.2%. Actually the indicator has been going back. The second fact that we must take into account is that the food industry I had a decade without registering such a pronounced price drop. To find a major year -on -year drop, you have to go back to February 2014. What is the reason? The million dollar question. In a context of industrial inflationwith energy, a 3.5% And the increasing industrial prices, why do those in the food sector descend? In An article in which he delves into that phenomenon, Javier Romera, from The economisthe remembered yesterday that the reduction of the industry arrives in a context marked by a crucial factor: the rise of white brands and their growing competition In supermarkets. THE GREAT PULSE OF THE SECTOR. The industry price adjustment therefore coincides with a key moment for manufacturers, marked by the pulse with supermarket chains and The growing weight that white marks have (those of the distributor itself, such as Auchan, Hacondado or Seleqtia). All this also after years marked by a deep inflationary crisis that has made the big chains that manage supermarkets try to contain prices. The phenomenon is not new and Manuel Morales, manager of the IFA group, in An interview with The economist: “If they don’t react, brands are dead.” His notice, he remembered, comes in a context in which white brands have a greater weight in the linear of supermarkets. “Already almost 50% add up and will continue to grow because they have increased quality and differentiating prices is increasing,” Morales foreshadowed. With that backdrop, the food industry has begun to Cut your profitability. In the first quarter it stood at 6.81% after falling for the first time since 2022. Does the white mark grow so much? Yeah. Last year Promarca presented A report which shows that in just a five years, between 2018 and 2023, the presence of white -branded goods in supermarkets increased by 13%. The opposite path followed the articles sold with the brand of its manufacturer, which during that same period they retreated 23%. Promarca represents manufacturers and is therefore interested in, but their report provides a valuable track. Promarca estimates that in a five years they have disappeared from the super more than 3,600 Products marketed by manufacturers outside the distribution chains while theirs, those of the white brand, added 1,800 only in the feeding and hygiene sections. The calculation was made after analyzing six large chains. The Statista platform estimates that the market share of the white brands grew between 2005 and 2015, fell for a few years and would rebound again in 2019 until they were in 2024 in about 46%. Other studies consider that their mark on the linear of supermarkets is greater and already exceeds 50%. Images | Arno Senoner (UNSPLASH) and Alcampo In Xataka | The favorite ice cream in Spain are from Mercadona and have no “brand”. And there is a Valencian company making gold with them

If you think hospital food is terrible, science has just proved you

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The industrial aspect of the trays in which food is served in the clinics, the aseptic environment of the room, or the bad drink that generally implies the visit to the health center are factors that convert hospital food into a dish of the liking of few. Well, the problem can be even more serious. Health and environment. A team of researchers has analyzed the food served in two hospitals and three residences in Germany and He has found reasons For concern, both for the health impact of menus and for their environmental effects. The team detected, in all the institutions analyzed, shortcomings in fundamental nutrients, including folate, potassium and vitamin B6. In addition, they also detected that in residences patients failed to achieve the required provision of proteins. “We have found that meals contained insufficient plant foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes; and too many refined grains, added sugars, salt and saturated fats,” pointed in a press release Lisa Pörtner, co -author of the study. “This leads us to an inadequate provision of nutrients and poor dietary quality.” Not only a matter of health. According to the equipment, the diet in health centers should be model in relation to its dietary quality, but the problems detected by the study go further, and the study found that the analyzed diets had a negative environmental impact. “We find that (these menus) contribute to environmental degradation and climate change (which also threatens health),” Nathalie Lambrecht highlightedalso member of the team. Planetary health diet. How did the team reach these conclusions? The study was based on the comparison between the sampled diets and a model diet, in this case the so -called Planetary Health Diet or phd. PHD is a diet Proposal in 2019 by experts of the Eat-Lancet commission, linked to the magazine specialized in medical studies The Lancet. This diet prepares the consumption of plant foods, limiting in turn the consumption of meats and dairy (without eliminating them). The equine not only contrasted the degree of adhesion of these menus to the PHD, it also cotnrasted its nutritional qualities through the so-called Healthy Eating Index-2020 and a nutritional adaptation evaluation. In addition, they calculated the “environmental footprint” of diets through an estimate of the requirements in land use, greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication (excess nutrients caused by waste emission), water -water acidification and expenditure. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine The Lancet: Planetary Health. And in Spain? The results are not directly extrapolated to Spanish hospitals, after all ingredients and cooking techniques can vary much from country to country, even in something as apparently bland as hospital food. However the situation here It doesn’t seem much betterto the point that the complaints of users and professionals took a few months ago to the ministries of health and consumption to take action on the matter. In May, the project of a new Royal Decree focused on improving the quality of menus in health centers, a framework similar to the announced months ago for the improvement of food quality in teaching centers, was announced. The process for the development of the new standard began with a public consultation announced the same May. In Xataka | How much meat is too much meat? This is how the debate about meat is changing Image | Xataka with Gemini

Airplanes are releasing tons of food on a familic gaza. There are those who believe it is a bad idea

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In full controversy for the famine that shakes the population of the Gaza Strip, Israel has decided Open your hand and guarantee “humanitarian pauses” and safe routes to facilitate food distribution in the area. The first thing we have seen however is something different: airplanes throwing food From the air, a measure that revives A controversy that already sounded strongly Just a year ago: Does the air cast really work? Is it real aid or is counterproductive? Something is clear: Mathematics They indicate that it is not the most effective way. What happened? That after days of controversy, marked by the publication of photographs in which they see familic Palestinian children and the hardening of the position of Germany, the United Kingdom and France, which They claim The end of the war (and the humanitarian crisis) in Gaza, Israel has decided to move card. On Sunday his army advertisement A series of “humanitarian pauses” in several points of the strip for ten hours a day to “increase the help” in the region. “Safe” breaks and routes. On paper, the objective is to facilitate the arrival of resources to help the population of the Strip, which faces a serious malnutrition crisis denounced among other organizations by the UN. The Israel Defense Forces (FDI) argue that “humanitarian pauses”, added to the creation of “safe routes”, will allow “Improve the humanitarian response”. The decision comes, however, in a very specific context: in the midst of an intense inertnational controversy due to the famine suffering from thousands of families from Gaza and the voices that accuse the Israel of being responsible for the crisis. The Netanyahu executive denies it and holds that humanitarian corridors “refute the false statement” of an “intentional famine”. In the opposite pole, Hamas alleges that Israel does not seek to stop the crisis in the strip, but “bleach her image”. A fact: 470,000 people. The UN World Food Program (WFP) Calculate that 100% of the population of Gaza faces “acute levels of food insecurity” and specifies that there are 470,000 people to the “catastrophic hunger”. “71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will require urgent treatment due to acute malnutrition,” prevent From the organism. The WPF is not the only one who has warned of the very serious crisis that crosses the strip. The Ministry of Health of Gaza, under Hamas control, Calculate That since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, in 2023, 133 people have died for malnutrition. Only so far in July the deceased They exceed 60. Click on the image to go to Tweet. What is the situation? The WFP warns That hunger in the strip “has increased dramatically” since in March the entry of aid in the region was prevented, “reversing the progress” achieved during the brief high the fire of the beginning of the year. In May, he remembers, the “limited” cast resumed, but has not served to stop the crisis. The UN says that since then it has only been able to deliver “small quantities” even though it has 116,000 t of food “lists”. Does Just two months The food distribution was activated by the Humanitarian Foundation of Gaza (GHF), an organization backed by Israel and the US that was launched between the suspicion of other international institutions. The person in charge of the United Nations Help Coordination, Tom Fletcher, He came to cross out of “cynical parody”, “a cover -up for greater violence and displacement” of the Palestinians within the territory. Looking at heaven. In the midst of the growing international controversy for the famine of Gaza, Israel has not only announced “tactical pauses” and “humanitarian runners” to facilitate the distribution of help in Gaza. He has also announced that he will connect a desalination plant to his electricity grid and has resumed the help of help from the air, a scene that already We saw in 2024. On Sunday at dawn Israel carried out an operation wishes, with the help of airplanes. Jordan and United Arab Emirates They were added throughout the following hours. According to Reutersin total they dropped 25 tons of help. A controversial decision. However, the use of aircraft and aerial launches will hardly help placate the controversy. Rather on the contrary. In 2024 about twenty humanitarian organizations They criticized That kind of deliveries in Gaza (both the aerial and maritime) by considering that “they are not an” real alternative to the most effective way and that, in their opinion, it should be a priority: the land. “Governments cannot hide behind aerial releases and efforts to open a maritime corridor in order to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support Gaza’s needs,” they warned in A statement NGOs, including Amnesty International or Oxfam. Click on the image to go to Tweet. Why do they reject them? The problem is not only of image or that air distributs are used as a way of avoiding the real focus of the problem. NGOs question their real utility warn that the capacity of airplanes is very limited. “Air releases cannot provide assistance volumes that can be transported by land,” They influenced last year. “While a five truck convoy has the capacity to transport about one hundred tons of vital assistance, recent air releases only deliver a few tons of help each,” They argue. The BBC He has made accounts And it has come to the conclusion that, given the situation in Gaza, 160 aircraft would be needed to supply a volume of food that guarantees that the gazaties will have a meal a day. The US Central Command estimates that in 2024 its C-130 load aircraft delivered 12,650 meals by plane and trip. “Extremely dangerous”. There is another reason why NGOs mislead air deliveries: safety. “The releases can be extremely dangerous for the lives of civilians who come in search of help. They have been reported dead by the free fall of help packages in gaza,” They warn The NGOs. The BBC He has interviewed To experts who … Read more

Roig believes that in 2050 we will no longer have kitchens at home because we will buy the food out. Science is not so clear

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The appointment was designed to boast resultsbut during the presentation of his 2024 memory, Juan Roig, president of Mercadona, launched a prognosis that monopolized almost more holders than the milmillonary turnover of the company. For many of many, the Valencian He predicted That babies who are born in thirty years will not know what it is to have pots or a caster. “I said and kept it: in the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens.” The reason? People will feed out of home or base of precooked dishes ‘ready to eat’ like those sold by the Mercadona itself, according to Roig’s particular gastronomic dystopia. A study Recent suggests that the Valencian perhaps rushed in his forecast and that, despite the changes of habits, Spain remains a country full of kitchens. A percentage: 59.1%. What percentage of Spaniards still cooking frequently? And how do they do it? Questions similar to those are what was raised a while ago Elena Sandriof the Catholic University of Valencia (UCV). To resolve them, he conducted a survey with more than 1,500 participants who threw some interesting conclusions, now embodied in An article Posted in the magazine International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science. Specifically there is a fact that seems to question that the future without kitchens prophesied by Roig is just around the corner: 59.1% Of the Spaniards still cook daily or almost daily. “It is still central”. The study does not stay there. The study reveals that the average time that 59.1% dedicated to the kitchen is around the hour and a half and that there are still a clear differences between sexes: they cook more frequently, apply healthier techniques and show wider gastronomic knowledge. Its score is several points higher than that of men. If we look at the ages, clear differences are also seen: adults cook more. With that data the expert reaches A clear conclusion: “Homemade cuisine is still central to Spanish culture.” His study also reveals the importance of knowledge to favor “healthy culinary practices” or “sociodemographic disparities”, especially among men, people with low educational level, young people and people who live alone. “They tend to resort more to fast food and prepared dishes, often due to the lack of time, skills or knowledge.” Is it the only study? No. Throughout the last years several studies have tried to answer the same question: do we continue to cook the Spaniards? In 2023 FESNAD, the Spanish Federation of Nutrition, Food and Dietary Societies, made A study With a sample of 1,075 and obtained a photograph somewhat different from that of Sandri: according to their calculations, about 46% of the Spaniards continue to turn on their vitros or stoves every day. It is a considerable percentage, although it already crosses the border of the middle of the population. “Our kitchen at home is losing importance, we do not cook daily and cook alone. We do not cook every day for the little time we have and the speed with which we live,” He pointed out The Vice President of Fesnad, Rosaura Leis. Another interesting perspective is contributed by the Kitchen Canal, which also made Your own study with 2,251 interviews with people between 20 and 65 years. What did you find out? That the large majority of the population (around 90%) cooks at least once a week, but only a very poor 20% does so daily. New times, new habits. The previous fact, of course, must be analyzed taking into account another key that slides the Channel Cocina report: almost four out of ten Spaniards (36%) practice Batching Batchingso they dedicate a day to cook much of the food they consume throughout the week. Among young people that practice rises to 41% and if we talk about Madrid, 46% have incorporated it into their lives. The study It also reveals that more than half of the Spaniards eat from Taper at least once a week, especially lunch from Monday to Thursday, and 43% receive them from other people, especially (yes) of their mothers. Is it the only change? Again, the answer is ‘no’. Throughout the last years industry and researchers have been sliding data that reveal that, although Juan Roig’s prognosis may still sound distant, in Spain it is increasingly easy to meet people who feed (timely or of often) without turning on a single stove or take a pan. The Association of Prepared Dishes Manufacturers (ASEFAPRE) estimates that in 2024 the consumption of its products 6.6% shot In homes, overcoming the barrier of 700,000 tons. To be more precise, per capita intake grew 3.8% to touch 17.2 kg per year. Similar reading leaves Another report From the consultant Kantar, who reveals that the purchase of dishes “ready to eat” has shot 48% in a matter of two years in Spanish supermarkets. Moreover, its survey shows that in 20% of cases the client does not even consume them at home. “The interest at this time lies in the search for balance between time, health and culinary pleasure,” summarizes Veronika Kurshudyan, director of the Customer Area of the consultant. “Look for solutions”. Simply, and although Spain still is a country full of kitchens, people already “not only buy food”, warns Kurshudyan. Now demand something else when he goes to supermarkets: “Look for solutions.” From that approach it is better understood than when a few months ago the CIS dedicated himself to asking the Spaniards if they believed that industrial cuisine and the Fast food They were eclipse to home cooking, they meet a striking result: most (mostthree out of four) people responded affirmatively. What is the conclusion? The key I gave it a few days ago Miquel Echarri in THE COMIDIST- THE COUNTRY: Perhaps the prepared food is gaining ground at a good pace and there is already 40.9% of Spaniards who never cook or do it very afternoon in the afternoon (the other reading left by Sandri’s study), but home cooking is far from being a … Read more

To the question of whether the food loses nutrients in the freezer, the answer is depends on how let’s defrost it

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In a casual conversation, the bread issued came out. Consumption a lot bread I make at homeand there are times that I have to freeze it. It is a practice that seems normal to me and in the bakery themselves give me bags for the freezer, but my friends do not think the same because “Defrosting bread is not the same“Hence the question about how freezing affects the food we consume, and the truth is that it is a rich issue and with many nuances. And almost more important than freezing, it is defrosting. There things can get dangerous to our health. Crystal. Humanity takes thousands of years using what it has at its disposal to better conserve food. The brine is a tacticbut in areas with ice and snow, They buried the food so that it did not rot. And then, the miracle arrived: the freezer. We underestimate it because we have it at home, but it is a fundamental tool, and what happens when we put a food in the freezer is that the low temperature freezes the water present in said food. And here is the mother of the lamb: not all foods freeze the same because, the more water they have, the more complex it will be a good defrost, the more its structure is altered and it is what can lead to us to think that the freezer is not so positive and that it alters the nutrients. But as we said, there are nuances. It depends on what we freeze. What happens is that internal water form crystals When frozen. The more water, the more crystals they form and, if the freezing is slow, those crystals can break the cell walls of the food. When we defrost it, the crystals get rid of and it is what can cause food to be softer or perceive like water. Vegetables and fruits suffer more than meat Because the amount of water they have inside is greater, but as we said, there are nuances because there are rich starchy vegetables whose molecular structure is maintained more than desirable after that freezing. If we crush the frozen fruit directly, provide flavor and texture to a shake. Does not lose its nutrients and we will not notice the change in texture Taste and texture. An example. Freezing peas or corn, rich in starch, allows, after defrosting, both texture and taste are maintained satisfactorily. However, lettuce, which has a huge amount of water, not only is left without grace and soft when defrosting, also loses its flavor. That happens because, in cell breakage, food loses its juices and, if in the meat or fish it is less evident, in fruits or vegetables whose base is the water becomes much more palpable. Then it also depends on what we do with that food: eating a defrosted lettuce is a punishment, but if we freeze watermelon, which is basically water, and without defrosting it we make a shake, the result will be satisfactory. Although even there we will notice a change of flavor. And very fatty foods such as milk or a yogurt can separate proteins, creating lumps by defrosting them. The avocado, however, endures it well. There is fruit that better supports freezing And the nutrients? But one of the central themes of the debate revolved around the Loss of nutrients of frozen foods. This may be the point at which there is more confusion, and luckily it is a point that has been studied to be able to extract some conclusions. Again, there are nuances. Proteins, fat -soluble vitamins such as A and D of meats and fish, minerals and fiber remain stable in freezing. An investigation from the University of Guadalajara suggests That even freezing can be beneficial to preserve certain nutrients that bioactive compounds would “eat” if we do not freeze food. However, The opposite occurs with hydrosoluble vitamins such as C or some of Group B, which are reduced slightly not during freezing, but in the defrosting of food. And then it is not the same industrial ultra -Gellation, which freezes foods very, very fast, than the one we can do at home. In that industrial freezing, water crystals are much smaller because it does not give time to develop, damaging the cellular structure of the food. Freeze well. It is complicated that we have at our disposal a freezer that allows us to cryogenize a steak in seconds, but what we do are techniques to freeze foods in the best possible way. To freeze them, it is best to introduce what we want to freeze in an air without air or in a hermetic container so that it does not contaminate the rest of the food we keep and its flavor does not alter, and to defrost them, There is a trick of tricksbut above all two that are fundamental. As important as freezing is how we defrost. If it is something that we are going to cook at the moment, we can resort to the microwave or directly to the pan. In that rapid defrosting, juices are those that have hydrosoluble vitamins and, when the interior of the product reaches the optimal temperature, it would be suitable to consume. But if we have chicken, fish or a frozen homemade pizza dough, it is Bad idea to leave the piece defrosting on the countertop Or, worse, expose it to the sun. There the thing becomes complicated and can even be harmful to the flavor due to something very simple: in a defrosting at room temperature, the base that supports the surface is defrost before and favors that the bacteria that had remained in pause retake their activity in a big way thanks to the fact that they have life, nutrients and more water than before, increasing the risk of poisoning. The best if we are not in a hurry? Plan and get out of the freezer what we are going to eat the next day … Read more

A garbage cube of 2,000 ago in Mallorca exposes the star product of Roman fast food: Zorzal’s skewer

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The concept of “fast food“It is currently strongly associated with that of”junk food”. It usually involves a not very healthy dish due to the presence of processed foods. But fast food really exists For centuries And the Romans, of course, have something to say there. And a recent study puts on the table an important fast food industry in Roman times to northern Mallorca. The star dish? Singing birds. “Popina”Alejandro Valenzuela is a researcher at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies in Mallorca and the author of a Published article in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology in which he details how in the Roman city of Pollentiahe Zorzal He was the protagonist of street food. Founded in the 123 AC to the north of Mallorca, Pollentia was an imperial city for the empire due to its location in the Mediterranean and its ports that They favored trade With the island. Today is an archaeological site in which we have a curious and small theater, but in its day it must have been a very busy city, a bustling shopping center in which food played an essential role. Inside the shops, were the ‘Popinae‘. These are small establishments where you could eat something fast and have a wine before following the way. They were focused on the lowest classes of Roman society. Searching in the garbage. This was something common in Roman cities due to their rhythm of life. In Herculano and Pompeii you can see some ruins in good condition of Themopoliumwhich are more like taverns for somewhat more wealthy people, but basically, in both cases there was a bar with amphorae to get some hot food, serve the client and that it followed on their way. An example of Thermopolium Valenzuela, what interested him was to know what was in those mud vessels, but to discover what the inhabitants who were walking for Pollentia had to look in their garbage. Near one of those popinas there was a septic tank of a few meters deep in which everything was thrown. Part of the garbage was ceramic, which has allowed to date the date of use of the well between 10 AC and 30 AD What else was there? A large number of mammalian bones, birds and fish. And the bones of the birds are the ones that caught their attention. Pollentia location in Mallorca in image A. in B, the location of the well. In C, the meters at which a greater concentration of bones were found Fast Food Bird. Although there were several species, such as chicken, the bones were mostly slut. They are small singing birds associated with the diet of the upper classes of the Roman empirebut here we are in a very different context: popular food at street level. The remains highlighted the skulls and sternons of those birds, which indicated one thing: the most juicy parts should be the ones that served in the popina. As with other birds, the extremities and the upper part of the chest are the most juicy, and Valenzuela estimates that removing that juicy meat allowed the food seller to cook those parts quickly to the grill or in oil to serve it quickly. It is a meat that hardly takes a few seconds to cook. The darker, the more presence of parts they found in the black well. Within the red perimeter, the most fleshy parts and their associated bones, little present in the well Seasonal. There is also the possibility that customers sit down and consume the zorzal in dishes, since ceramic remains could indicate that there was a dishes, but due to the size of the bite, Alejandro Comment In Live Science that, within the “context of street food, it is also plausible to serve in skewer to facilitate consumption.” In the end, except exceptions, food in ancient times was linked to seasons and the foal is a seasonal product that would have integrated well into a diet like that of Roman cities with others like domestic chicken either European rabbittwo species whose remains would also have served in this restaurant Fast food of Pollentia. But the most important thing is that this finding makes the belief that the Zorzal was a luxury bite for the Romans staggers because the Popinae They were not precisely the premises that most frequented the High classes. Images | Daniele Florio From Rome, Dion art In Xataka | The world ranking of ultraprocess food: the countries that most and less consume it worldwide

What’s behind the fever to cool food so that it fattens less

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Something is changing in the kitchens, and I’m not talking about The arrival of the Cosori. Rather, those small, apparently insignificant decisions, which take shape between common foods. It is no longer enough to choose between integral or white rice, between mother’s bread or industrial slices. Now, the debate moves to temperature: have you cooled rice? Have you saved that pizza to reheat tomorrow? What looks like a more domestic mania is, in fact, part of a silent revolution driven from social networks and backed – at least in part – by science: that of resistant starch. From networks to the large intestine. The story begins in social networks and other corners of the influencer universe. They appear Videos cooling and overheating rice bowls and even ensuring that a pizza involved in the fridge becomes “healthy”. Everything is summarized in a promise: less glucose, less calories, more health. Resistant starch? Let’s enter into matter so that it can be understood well. The starch It is a chain of molecules of glucose that some plants store as a source of energy. There are different ways of organizing those chains, and according to their structure – more or less accessible to our digestive enzymes – the body may digest it or not. When foods rich in starch are cooked (such as pasta, potatoes or rice), heat causes a process called gelatinization: chains are messy and become more digestible. But if they get cooled later, part of those chains are reorganized in a new, more compact and difficult to break for our enzymes. That process is called retrogradation, and the resulting product is resistant starch. This “reborn” starch reaches the large intestine without being absorbed. There it is fermented by the microbiota, producing beneficial compounds such as butyrate, a fundamental fatty acid for intestinal health, According to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). Butirate not only feeds the intestine cells, it also protects the mucosa and can help prevent diseases such as colon cancer. Is it really beneficial? Science partially supports enthusiasm. According to Cleveland Clinicresistant starch behaves similar to fiber: it helps maintain intestinal health, improves the composition of the microbiota and helps to regulate blood glucose. You have to differentiate in four types: Type 1: Present in legumes, whole grains and seeds. Its cell structure makes it inaccessible during digestion. Type 2: It is found in raw foods such as green banana or potato without cooking. Type 3: It is the one that forms when cooking and then cooling foods rich in starch (such as rice, pasta, bread or potato). Type 4: It is a chemically modified starch, present in processed products. According to A meta -analysis cited in Scientedirectthese effects are more notable in types 1 and 2 of resistant starch (those present naturally in green legumes and bananas). Type 3, which is formed by cooling cooked foods, also seems to have benefits, although somewhat more modest. It is not the philosopher’s diet. From Cleveland Clinic They have explained That resistant starch acts similarly to the fiber: it improves the microbiota, it can help regulate blood sugar and have positive effects on the immune system. However, There is no solid evidence that alone it helps to lose weight or reduce appetite, although it may have a light satious effect. There may be risks. The part that does not always appear in the networks of networks is that cooling foods such as rice or potato can have microbiological risks if it is not done correctly. Specifically, the Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that survives cooking and produces toxins in food that spend a lot of time at room temperature after being cooked. In a report from El País They have warned that the heating and cooling cycles – just those promoted to generate resistant starch – are perfect for this bacteria to activate. Basic recommendations: Cools food in less than an hour. Store it in the fridge and consume it at 24-48 hours. Reheat only once already high temperature. Never leave it several hours at room temperature. In search of a balance. Is it worth eating more resistant starch? Science says yes, especially when it comes from integral foods, legumes, firm bananas or well -manipulated tubers. It has effects similar to fiber, helps microbiota and can be part of healthy eating. Will you magically convert a pizza into salad? No. like We have explained in this mediumthe real effect on health is minimal if it is not accompanied by a context of healthy habits. The total diet and your lifestyle continue to weigh much more than a cycle of cold and heat on a plate of rice. It may not be a revolution, but a track of where part of the current interest in food moves: look for more fiber, more microbiota, more glycemic control … and less ultrazúcar disguised. The resistant starch, by itself, will not convert ultraprocessed dishes into healthy or to replace a balanced diet, but can add – like so many other small decisions – to a more conscious way to eat. Image | Unspash Xataka | The spicy is proof that we can fight heat with “fire”

We are far from getting the pill that can replace food. The reason we may not get it is very simple

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Today we can find a huge variety of Nutrients in the form of pill or in a similar format: vitamins, minerals and other compounds that our body generally obtains from food, in a more “practical” format. Some of these pills in fact incorporate a wide variety of these nutrients. This leads us to raise an issue: why not everyone. Is it possible to concentrate all micro- and macronutrients, and all the energy contribution that our body needs in a simple format? And if it is, are we close to achieving it? If someone hoped that the answer to this last question was something different from a resounding “no”, he was wrong. To understand why it is so difficult we have to understand a key detail: not all nutrients are the same and some simply do not fit in a single pill. The first thing we should know for understand the great difficulty to which we would face if we wanted to create A pill to feed It is how we classify nutrients. We usually distribute them into two groups. The first is that of macronutrients that covers three categories: fat or lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins or amino acids. The second, that of micronutrients, which covers the vitamins and minerals that our body requires for its function. The difference between the categories can be intuited by name (and advances the great reason why it is difficult to concentrate the food in a pill), is the amount. We can see food as a mechanism of our body to obtain two things. The first, chemical elements and compounds that you need in your daily function such as amino acids, minerals or vitamins. The second is energy, which obtains mainly through two key macronutrients: carbohydrates and fats (although our body can “recycle” its own proteins as an emergency energy source). Energy is the main problem, and even the most energy concentrated foods, FatsThey require relatively large volumes to be able to provide us with the energy we need (Between 1,600 and 3,000 calories a day in adultsdepending on our body and our habits). The idea of lipid supplements It is not new, but concentrating the necessary amount of fat to replace a meal in a single pill (in which we would also have to include other compounds) does not seem viable, so in the best case we would become dependent on the consumption of several pills to consume throughout the day. “Human beings are never going to eat pills such as food … pills can never be made in a way that contain enough caloric volume,” he explained in an article published in 1936 in the Jefferson City post-tribune (according to He collected more recently The British chain BBC) The professor of the University of Comumbia Milton A. Bridges. “Experfically plausible to provide all the necessary vitamins and minerals in a meal in the form of a pill. But you cannot achieve calories if it is not eating food.” We still have no food in pill but we do have products that try to offer us all the micro and macronutrients that our body needs in a more bulky formatthe milkshake. Slopes of this type are not new: a decade ago they began to popular formulas Like Soylent or Joylent. Is it possible to subsist and stay healthy with these formulas? We do not know, but there are two reasons that lead us to doubt. The first is that human nutrition is very complex. We know a lot about it but it is possible that our bodies require traces of some micronutrient that we have not considered. This is not necessarily the case, but it is a possibility. To know this we would have to put this type of test formulas in rigorous experiments and long term. Something is complicated today. The second issue has to do with the diversity of our bodies: people of different age, sex or body mass would need specific formulas for adapt to your body’s requirements. Even controlling these variables we would also find a huge diversity caused by health disorders and conditions, habits and daily activities, and other factors very difficult to introduce if we would like to customize the pills or The smoothies To consume. Reducing our diet to a series of pills would undoubtedly have their advantages. But it would be difficult to make us lose, as a species, our taste for gastronomy. This way of feeding ourselves is today science fiction and for many surely of the subgenre focused on dystopia: after all, these formulas, practices on a day -to -day basis, eliminate the agency and the feeling of having free will. This does not mean that these options could not have their niche, for example facilitating food in Interplanetary trips or in other contexts in which access to food could be more complicated. In Xataka | We have asked two nutritionists to blind a weekly menu created with GPT-4. It has been very well stopped Image | Danilo.Alvesd

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