Human consumption of barley has many beneficial effects, such as reduction of cholesterol and stabilization of blood sugar levels. Barley is not a frequent element in our diet, and has typically only been eaten marginally as a starchy product - e.g. porridge. Otherwise, barley is predominantly used for malt beer or as feed for animals. So far, barley has not been used often in bread making due to its poor baking properties. We know that the baking properties of a dough depend on the protein structure in the dough. But no one has ever mapped the entire network of proteins in dough that give these physical and baking properties. In this project, the structure of the protein network in dough is mapped in order to explain differences in the baking quality of different barley varieties compared to wheat. We use state-of-the-art methodologies within new breeding methods, protein analyzes and use special naked barley varieties to gain previously unknown knowledge of how proteins in dough form networks during breadmaking. This knowledge will contribute to the green transition, as barley has a much lower need for nitrogen input (fertilisation) than wheat, as well as promoting Nordic agriculture and ensuring new, healthier bread products, as it is well described that due to a higher fiber content than both wheat and rye, barley and oats have a very high health potential.Description

The EU-funded FOODCLIC project aims to contribute to urban food environments that make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all citizens, including deprived and vulnerable groups.

Europe’s urban areas face significant challenges to ensure the availability and consumption of healthy, affordable, safe and sustainably produced food. Such challenges converge within local food environments, but are often neglected by public planners. Promising initiatives taken by municipalities to change the architecture of food choice often fail to become embedded in the wider policy context and to reach deprived and vulnerable groups. Key factors responsible for this are: siloed ways of working and fragmentation of knowledge on facilitators and barriers related to food system transformation. These factors hinder the development and implementation of integrated urban food policies.

Five-year project FOODCLIC (2022-2027), aims to contribute to urban food environments that make healthy and sustainable food available, affordable and attractive to all citizens, including deprived and vulnerable groups. The project will do so through creating strong science-policy-practice interfaces across eight European city-regions (45 towns and cities). The backbone of such Interfaces will be provided by Food Policy Networks, which will manage real-world experimental Living Labs to build a policy-relevant evidence-base through learning-in-action. Activities will be informed by an innovative conceptual framework (the CLIC), which emphasises four desired outcomes of food system integration: sustainability co-benefits, spatial linkages, social inclusion and sectoral connectivities. Capacity-building and direct support for intensive multi-stakeholder engagement (including deprived and vulnerable groups) will enable policy actors and urban planners across partner city-regions to develop continuously evolving integrated urban food policies and render planning frameworks food-sensitive.Description