Mª Ángeles Romero: «Educating in nutrition means preventing diseases»
Indeed, sustainability is only a global challenge as relevant as food today. That is why the work of professionals like Mª Ángeles Romero Rodríguez is critical and vital for a world with titanic challenges in nutrition.
Professor of Food Technology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, professor with a Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics and a Master's in Innovation, Nutrition, Safety and Food Technologies of Campus Terra, her curriculum impresses. She is the director of Institutional Bread and Cereal Chair and coordinator of the research group Sensory Analysis, Nutritional Assessment and Development of New Foods, as well as co-founder of a spin-off successful and recognized TasteLab.
In this interview, we talk with her about her work as a researcher and teacher, the need to have a generation of professionals very well trained in the field of nutrition and food, and the importance of bread in a territory like Galicia.
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-Guarantee healthy food, double agricultural productivity, and ensure the sustainability of food production systems... The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are very ambitious in your field of knowledge. Are these challenges achievable in the short or medium term?
-Normally, I am a very optimistic person, but I cannot be in the case of ensuring healthy food for all people. The existing figures on the number of people suffering from malnutrition, either by default (food insecure people) or by excess (overweight and obese people), are overwhelming: more than 5 billion people.
We are, therefore, a long way from achieving a situation of food security in which all people have permanent physical, social and economic access to safe, nutritious food in sufficient quantity to meet their nutritional requirements and food preferences and, thus, be able to lead an active and healthy life.
I am also not very optimistic about ensuring the sustainability of food production systems. This implies managing resources to meet current needs without jeopardizing the needs of the future, guaranteeing a balance between environmental care, social welfare and economic growth, and this is also far from being achieved.
-You are the director of the Cátedra Institucional do Pan e do Cereal. Few chairs are as imbricated in a territory's heritage as yours because, in Galicia, bread is still almost a religion. What does your work consist of?
-The Institutional Bread and Cereal Chair is an institutional Chair of the University of Santiago de Compostela, specifically of the Campus Terra. It aims to promote the dissemination, teaching and research of everything related to bread and its raw material, cereals.
In this Chair, we involve researchers from very different areas: Plant Production, Zoology, Agricultural Economics, Food Technology, Nutrition and Bromatology, Statistics, etc. This allows us to tackle integral projects that I like to call "from the field to the table" because we study the Cereal before it is planted since we also control the soil conditions, the development process of the crop itself, its agronomic characteristics, etc.
Once the cereal grain is harvested, we grind it and analyze the flour. With this flour, we make the bread, which will also be analyzed from a nutritional, physical-chemical and sensory point of view with a panel of trained tasters. In addition, we apply genetic and microscopic traceability techniques and consumer studies.
Bread is part of the gastronomic culture of Galicia, and we try not to lose the traditional way of making it. Therefore, we want to enhance the value of quality, traditional breads. The market's bread offering is becoming wider and wider since we can find different types of bread that were not common in Galicia or Spain, but the wide offer is not always associated with great quality.
We want to avoid losing breads that are only made with cereal flour, water, sourdough and salt and that undergo long fermentations because, from a nutritional point of view, they are the most suitable compared to ultra-processed breads with added sugars, fats, etc.
The second aspect of the importance of our work is that we are working to promote the cultivation of native cereals throughout Galicia. I think this is a fantastic way to contribute to the rural and, therefore, economic development of Galicia, combat land abandonment, and promote our own food sovereignty. All this helps sustainability and biodiversity and allows us to be less dependent on foreign cereals. I am a strong advocate of healthy food, and one of its characteristics is that it has to be sustainable.
-One of your latest research projects analyzed the traceability and baking abilities of Galician native wheat varieties. What are the conclusions of this work?
-This research project was carried out in collaboration with AGACAL-CIAM and involved agronomic, grain quality and baking aptitude tests of seven autochthonous wheat varieties. From the Institutional Bread and Cereal Chair, we carried out the molecular genetic, microscopic and traceability characterization of the flours and native wheat, the nutritional characterization of the flours and the nutritional and organoleptic characterization of the bread obtained from these flours, as well as the determination of the physical properties. In addition to analyzing the two varieties registered as autochthonous wheat (Caaveiro and Callobre), five other ecotypes were studied, proving they have similar characteristics to those already registered.
-You have also investigated the use of native cereals in organic management versus conventional ones. Are there significant differences between them?
-It is a project financed by the ministry that is being developed and in which we study, among other aspects, the influence of the production system (organic versus conventional) on all the characteristics of the production of the Cereal (wheat and rye) to the obtaining of flours and bread. As we still have two years of study left, it would be too early to give conclusive results at this time.
-The food industry has the most significant growth potential due to the considerable number of challenges facing society at a global level. To what extent does an academic offer such as the one created by Campus Terra represent a quality alternative for students?
-If there is something fundamental for people, it is food. All the factors involved in food production, elaboration, transformation, conservation, etc., will be necessary for society.
Therefore, Campus Terra includes the degrees needed to contribute to our significant societal challenges.
One of the degrees in which I teach the most is the Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics offered by the Faculty of Sciences. Having this degree within the field of Health Science is a tremendous success because we train people who should be in all the areas that surround us (schools, health centres, both in primary care and in the different specialities, nursing homes, sports clubs, municipalities, etc.) since educating in nutrition means preventing diseases. Great professionals from our centre who, for example, in health centres, should be part of multidisciplinary teams with medical, nursing and psychology staff).
-One of the challenges I asked you about previously is nutrition's contribution to healthy aging. The Nutriage-V project of the Galicia-North Portugal Macroregion is working in this direction. What are the lines of work of this project?
-According to the latest data, Spain is one of the European countries with the highest percentage of older adults. Concern about the quality of the diet is increasing, especially among institutionalized older adults, who are at the highest risk of malnutrition. This European project was developed to provide solutions for healthy ageing through nutrition in the Euroregion Galicia—North of Portugal.
Several organizations participated in addition to the USC, including the Consellería de Política Social, the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), the Cluster Alimentario de Galicia, ANFACO-CECOPESCA, Portugal Foods, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo and Santa Casa Da Misericórdia Do Porto.
In this project, I coordinated the research to determine the adequacy of the actual intake of institutionalized older adults in Galician public residences. In addition, we evaluated the residents' degree of satisfaction and analyzed the menus offered by the Galician public homes. Important aspects, such as the menus' composition and the portions' size, could be optimized to comply with the recommendations for people over 65 years of age, both from the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
-You are one of the founders of TasteLab, one of the most successful and recognized university spin-offs in Galicia in recent years. What is the company's origin, and what are you currently focused on?
-Our research group committed to sensory analysis when nobody in Galicia used this technique. We were the pioneer group in Galicia in the use of objective sensory analysis, using panels of trained tasters, and subjective, using consumers. This made us a reference group in these techniques. We apply it to a multitude of foods.
Among the different research projects awarded was one focused on the study of Galician kiwifruit, and this project was the basis of Maruxa Quiroga's Doctoral Thesis, which became passionate about sensory analysis techniques. Before presenting her doctoral thesis, she started working in a technology centre as head of the sensory analysis laboratory, and once she defended her thesis, she proposed to her thesis supervisors, Lourdes Vázquez and myself, and to Nieves Muñoz from the Department of Statistics to set up the spin-off, TasteLab.
This company is the first technological company in sensory analysis and has created a unique software called SENSESBIT. This software makes it possible to manage sensory analysis comprehensively, develop questionnaires, manage the answers, visualize and analyze the results and obtain a complete report with all the conclusions. It is a customizable and intelligent system tailored to the client's needs, as it automatically performs statistical analysis and generates reports. The company is currently present in 6 international markets.
-We didn't want to close this interview without asking you about the foods of the future and new trends. Will we see the appearance of disruptive foods that are conceptually very different, both in their aesthetics and in their taste?
-As I said at the beginning, I am a great advocate of healthy eating and innovation because we have to be competitive. Therefore, before incorporating a new food, you have to ensure that it is sustainable and healthy, that we really need it, and that consumers accept it. Hence, it is essential to carry out severe studies on nutritional and sensory characterization, considering the acceptance of the end consumer, who will accept or reject the food and buy it or not.
Something important that we often do not consider is that we can bet on recovering traditional crops that have ceased to be cultivated and consumed. These crops have already been adapted to our territory and climatic conditions. It would be a great bet in favor of sustainability, and for many people, it would be novel food.