The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease . The act of eating has implications for these different dimensions of health, and inadequate nutrition is a central determinant of our health and the risk of developing disease. For these reasons, increasing attention has been given to the act of eating, not only in terms of integrating nutrients necessary for the proper functioning of the body, but also in terms of the technical knowledge needed to relate food to physical and chemical processes in a way that makes eating sensorially appealing and promotes sociability. Without these integrated aspects, it is unlikely that citizens will change their behavior or that the promotion of healthy eating will gain followers.
More recently, several authors have been highlighting the need to empower healthcare professionals working in the prevention and management of chronic diseases with greater knowledge in the culinary arts, and also that academic training in the field of nutritional sciences should integrate more skills in this area. The same applies in the opposite direction, that is, bringing culinary arts professionals into the knowledge areas of nutritional sciences.
To further this discussion on the affinities between gastronomy and the health and nutrition sciences, we can invoke Brillat-Savarin, who in December 1825, with his * Physiologie du goût* (Physiology of Gluttony) , published in Portugal by Relógio D'Água in 2010, inaugurated an in-depth discussion of what gastronomy is and its relationship to health. Regarding the definition of gastronomy, Brillat-Savarin, in his Meditation XI, in the chapter entitled " On Gastronomy," says the following: "They continually confuse the terms gastronomy proper with those of gluttony and voracity…they have forgotten, completely lost the memory of social gastronomy which, combining Athenian elegance, Roman luxury, and French delicacy, prepares with finesse, commands with wisdom, savors with energy, and judges with depth." "Gastronomy is the passionate, rational, and habitual preference for all objects that please the palate. Gastronomy is the enemy of excess; any man who suffers from indigestion or who gets drunk risks being excluded from the class of gastronomes. From a physical point of view, it is the result and proof of the healthy and perfect state of the organs destined for nutrition. From a moral point of view, it represents an implicit yielding to the orders of the Creator who, having commanded us to eat in order to live, invites us to do so through appetite, sustains us through flavor, and rewards us through pleasure." According to Brillat-Savarin, "Gastronomy is one of the main elements of social unity. It is what gradually broadens that spirit of conviviality that brings together, every day, the various classes, merges them into a single whole, animates conversation, and blurs the contours of conventional inequality." And finally, "When gastronomy transforms into gluttony, voracity, debauchery, then it loses the right to its name and its superiority, escapes our responsibilities and becomes part of the realm of moralists, who will combat it through advice, or of the doctor who will seek to cure it with remedies."
From these insightful texts, though characteristic of a particular era, one can perceive the possibilities for evolution and affinities between the nutritional sciences, which at the beginning of the 20th century began to understand the relationship between nutrients present in food and health, and the culinary arts and gastronomy, which attempt to work with flavor and, consequently, individual and collective taste. Human beings increasingly base their choices on knowledge and the rationality of a pursuit of health and well-being, supported by the development of nutritional sciences. Food choices are also based on the primal pleasure that food establishes with our bodies and with the centers of pleasure and satiety, on the availability of food, and finally, on the social, cultural, economic, and historical relationships that shape the act of eating within a certain hierarchical influence on our daily choices. It is within this difficult-to-define balance that the relationship between these two sciences can be situated, allowing them to mutually assist each other in the pursuit of flavor and health, influencing tastes and preferences that are now desired to be healthy for all human beings, without exception, and also for the health of the planet.
This means that culinary knowledge and gastronomy can help recover traditional production methods and flavors, including those of "saudade" (a feeling of longing or nostalgia), or contribute to the implementation of healthy and sustainable meals. This requires knowledge of local food cultures and scientific knowledge in the area of food throughout processing and even in the bioavailability of nutrients. It's a type of knowledge based on popular culture, passed down from older generations to younger ones, integrating knowledge of the seasonal availability of food in local productive landscapes, the biological needs of populations, and also the communities' capacity for access and exchange—that is, their relationship with the environment and other human beings, whether near or far. This also signifies a greater connection between culinary knowledge and knowledge of nutritional and health sciences, which the new Master's program in Gastronomic Sciences at FCNAUP aims to encourage and develop.
As practical examples of this potential link between nutritional sciences and gastronomy, we can cite the traditional training of professionals involved in meal production. However, there is unexplored potential that goes beyond this situation. We will cite some examples.
Reducing salt, sugar, saturated fat, and the energy value of food products and meals is currently a national public health intervention area and also an objective of the WHO and the European Commission. In this sense, the national food industry began a process of reformulating the food supply in the last decade, a process that gained momentum in Portugal with recently signed agreements. However, in the restaurant sector, achieving these objectives has been more difficult due to the challenge of reconciling meal production practices still based on ancestral technical knowledge that prioritizes the excessive use of salt and sugar, as well as a high proportion of animal protein and fat. Intervention in the restaurant sector has also been hampered by the vast number of commercial establishments and the need to maintain low production costs. This is one of the challenges of the alliance between gastronomy and health: innovating to maintain sensory quality and the authenticity of products of origin, while simultaneously modifying and improving the nutritional quality of the food offered in restaurants and hotels.
Another area of work is the development of culinary or food preservation techniques that allow maintaining or even increasing the presence of certain nutrients or their bioavailability. For example, through the revitalization of the natural fermentation of horticultural products , using indigenous cultures. This methodology is historical, surviving from generation to generation among families and countries. Nowadays, these fermentations can be controlled using starter cultures suitable for the intended objectives, obtaining beneficial effects for health and well-being. Fermentation is a slow process of decomposition of organic substances induced by microorganisms or enzymes that essentially convert carbohydrates into alcohols or organic acids. When applied to vegetables and by choosing the appropriate starter culture, it appears to be a promising process for enriching them with micronutrients.
Many other possibilities also open up with the need to explore and value gastronomically plants and animals that, although edible and of great nutritional value, have less commercial value in the national territory. This area also integrates the preservation of local species within a logic of social and environmental sustainability that must now be present in the development of innovative products and services in the food sector.
This is a bright future for this new technical and scientific relationship that we hope to establish in the Master's program in Gastronomic Sciences, which we are launching this year at the University and Polytechnic of Porto.
Written by
Full Professor at FCNAUP. Director of the Master's Program in Gastronomic Sciences.
Pedro Graça, Director of the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Porto