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Food Knowledge is Power ... What we can learn from Trade Conferences

The American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, who interestingly prefers to study normal or accomplished personalities rather than disturbed characters came up with his theory on the Hierarchy of Needs and outlined the basic Physiological needs of people to cover air, water, food, shelter, sleep and sex, and of course, the need to eliminate.

I was thinking of Maslow's theory when I covered the expositions in Paris.  The massive expos here usually deal with food products, architecture and home decor ... I haven't encounter an expo on sex and er, elimination whatever (as I try delicately to avoid expounding on this matter), but it is a known fact that sex does sell although I don't think it's a done thing to actually create a global trade show or marketplace for that although I think something exists in terms of the porno film industry and there is an exhibition, probably in the USA for the promotion of soft and/or hard core porno film.  Gee, talk about Physiological needs!

Anyway, the subject is Knowledge and the conferences and forum that deliver the information to trade attendees to SIAL, the Global Food Marketplace that's held once every two years in Paris, so food experts and ideally, consumers as well, are kept updated on innovation in not only technology, but nutritional values and the global trends.

These are the topics covered at SIAL this year, and I'll only extract the English translated programme, the French will just take me too much time to translate:

1. The real nature of meat consumption today and principle nutritional properties
2. The Impact of Changing Lifestyles on our Diet
3. Food-Related Best Practice in the Company - A practical and lasting commitment
4. Key Ingredient Trends and New Products Applications
5. Culinary Design and Attitudes to Food
6. A Chinese Health Marketing Strategy Model
7. Food Safety, Quality
8. The Impact of Preparation and Cooking on Food
9. How can we give the consumer more natural choices?
10. Nutrition in Commercial Catering
11. Innovation and Food Safety: Threat or Opportunity?
12. The New Ingredients - Issues, prospects and functionality
13. Logistics of Chilled and Frozen Products
14. Enjoyment of Food is Essential to Health
15. Food and Beauty Get Inspired!
16. How does Diet affect Ageing?
17. The Importance of R&D in nutritional quality
18. The Role of Regional Products in Our Diet
19. Food Allergies - Manufacturers' response to the apparent increase in food allergies
20. Initial research findings to boost innovation in the traditional food industry sector
21. The impact of the new European regulations
22. The impact of preservation methods on taste and nutritional quality
23. Food and Cancer Prevention - some research findings that warrant further investigation
24. The Super Fruits, Super Foods and Super Ingredients of the Future
25. Challenges and Opportunities for the European Agri-Food sector
26. Nutrigenomics - from research to the design of new foods.  What are the opportunities for food manufacturers.
27. Towards a consumer-specific response
28. Childhood Obesity - How can we bring about long-term changes in attitude?
29. Can the food industryhelp improve the population's nutritional status?
30. Organic Food - A lasting trend?
31. Dairy Products - A driving force for innovation in nutrition
32. Nutrition Claims - Applying the new directives
33. Food Supplements - A source of well-being!
34. Health Programmes - Examples of successful and promising public health programmes from round the world
35. Disease Prevention - The effect of healthy eating support on disease prevention
36. Environmental Protection - Are food products compatible with environmental protection?  The example of seafood products.
37. When Technology Benefits Nutrition e.g. e-health, smart trolleys, etc.

That's 37 conferences out of over 140 conferences and events programme during the five day trade days.

How on earth is one going to pack all that information into one's brain?!  Let alone act on everything?  If we care not only for ourselves but for the children we have or the next generation, we really need to learn as much as we can about what we consume.  We are what we eat, and we need to know what we eat - food affects our body and our mind.