Scientific culture is a key tool for making more informed decisions, both in the individual and in the collective sphere. Also in the diet: understanding what we eat, how food is produced or what effects they have on health provides criteria and reinforces the consumer’s ability to make responsible decisions and adopt healthier habits.

With the aim of promoting responsible consumption based on scientific evidence, the University of the Basque Country (EHU), through its Chair of Scientific Culture, and the Eroski Foundation have signed a collaboration agreement for the elaboration of contents of scientific dissemination. These contents, which will deal with themes related to food, health and food safety, will be published on the web Consumer.es.

The collaboration agreement was signed last Thursday, March 12, by the Vice Rector for Transfer and Internationalization of the EHU, Gotzone Barandika Argoitia, and the general director of the Eroski Foundation, Alejandro Martínez Berriochoa. Through this agreement, the Chair will coordinate the preparation of the contents, written by research staff and specialists in different areas related to food and health.

In the words of Alejandro Martínez Berriochoa, general Director of the Eroski Foundation, “Consumer is a pioneering publication in the defense and information of consumers that has been active for more than five decades. We are the most important consumer portal in the country with 156 million web views and impressions in RRSS and we are a prestigious reference in rigorous information for responsible and sustainable consumption. We believe that with these articles of scientific dissemination we will reinforce our informative and educational work and we will help the consumer to make more informed decisions about their food and health.”

As explained by Gotzone Barandika, vice Chancellor of Transfer and Internationalization of the EHU, “this agreement with the Eroski Foundation reinforces the commitment of the EHU with the transfer of knowledge to society. Providing citizens with proven and evidence-based information in areas such as food and health is part of our responsibility as a public university.”

On the other hand, Iker Badiola Etxaburu, Director of the Chair of Scientific Culture of the EHU, said that “this collaboration shows the value of joining efforts to offer training to the consumer and promote their knowledge. Both entities thus reinforce their social action and contribute to a better informed society with greater capacity for decision-making.”

 

More criteria to decide on food and consumption

Different experts in health and food will participate in the elaboration of a series of informative articles, which will have a monthly periodicity. The articles will be addressed from different areas of knowledge, from biology, chemistry or nutrition, through pharmacology or psychology. Among the topics to be addressed are issues such as the increased detection of cancer cases in young people, the keys to frying fish in a healthier way or the role of prolactin in the body, a hormone linked, among other functions, to lactation and pregnancy.

The first article of the collaboration, “[Mental health misinformation in TikTok: what we know and what works to correct it]“, It can already be consulted on the website of Consumer.es, and is signed by the health psychologist David Carcedo, coordinator of the laboratory section at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL).

 

 

About the Eroski Foundation

The Eroski Foundation is a private non-profit initiative, whose fundamental mission is to carry out multiple initiatives of social action, mainly related to the promotion of healthy living habits, consumer training, the defense of the environment and solidarity, work done through the magazine Consumer.es, among other supports.

 

On the Chair of Scientific Culture of the University of the Basque Country

The Chair of Scientific Culture of the University of the Basque Country (EHU) is a university extension chair whose main objective is to promote scientific and technological knowledge in Basque society and disseminate scientific culture in all geographical, administrative and cultural areas within its reach. The Chair develops this work through the organization of face-to-face activities of scientific dissemination and the daily publication in their blogs —Zientzia Kaiera, Scientific Culture Notebook, Women with Science and Mapping Ignorance— and in their social profiles.