We start the new year fulfilling the promise of writing a second part of the post “Without sugar, please” of possible alternatives to elaborate food without sucrose or “table sugar”, the most commonly used sweetener in the industrialized world.
So this year, my letter to Three Wise Men was:
Dear Three Wise Men:
As you know, the search for alternatives to sucrose is a topic of general interest for the food industry, consumers, researchers, health professionals, etc.
So this year, in which I’ve endeavored to find the way to develop healthier foods, I would like to ask you a very special sweetener. First of all, I would like that this sweetener could be at least as sweet as sucrose, colorless, odorless, noncariogenic and, of course, low-calorie. I would like the taste could clean and could not provide foreign flavors. I would like it could be water soluble and stable in both acidic and basic conditions and over a wide range of temperatures. Thinking in industry, it would be ideal that it could be processed in a similar way to the sucrose so that they could continue to use the same equipment. I would love that I could include it in any food and does not harm the shelf life of the final product.
As you are wise and very nice, I also want to be price competitive in relation to sucrose and easy to produce, store and transport. And to conclude, please the most important thing, is that it is SAFE for the entire population, I mean that it is not toxic and is metabolized without causing any unwanted alteration.
Thank you very much and if you fulfill what I ask you I promise that next year we will have the healthiest sweet coal in the world!
Love,
María
So, I sent my letter really excited and January 6 th, my children who always get up 8 o´clock in the morning, came to wake me up screaming: “Mummyyy!, the Three Wise Men have left a letter for you!” They were right, Wise Men had bothered to reply to my letter and this is what they said:
Dear María:
We have received your letter and we are very proud that from Cartif, you continue betting on a healthier diet but we have to tell you that, although we are magicians, we do not perform miracles. We are sorry to inform you that sweetener you describe in your letter does not exist. We can only advise you to use sweeteners you have intelligently, combine them between themselves to achieve a synergistic effect and thus use less amounts. If you are looking for low-calorie sweetener than sucrose, you can use intensive sweeteners and polyols although we know than there are controversies about their effects on health, which can give strange flavors and are labeled as additives.
We have received news of the “Stevia-boom” that is living in the food industry. If you have time, we’d like you to tell that although stevia (E-960) is plant-derived this does not mean that it is natural. Remember that all or nothing is poison and that the difference is in the dose.
Keep in mind that you can also use soluble fibers such as inulin and polydextrose although they provide less sweetness, ferment the intestinal microbiota acting as prebiotics, provide few calories and are not labeled as additives.
And before saying goodbye, as we all know that it has not won the lottery, still encouraging enterprises to develop products with a more balanced nutritional profile.
Technology is very present in our lives. Proof of this is the increasing use of computers, smartphones, tablets and video games. Technology helps us with daily tasks, provides entertainment and fun, but can also improve fields such as medicine and health by helping to understand concepts, forming and encouraging both patients and healthcare personnel.
Technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality have been introduced in our lives mainly through video games and have a lot of potential for implementation in the world of health. Everybody knows about these concepts but we are going to comment these terms to avoid confusion.
The mixed reality (MR) consists of combining the virtual world and the real world, creating spaces where virtual objects interact with real people and vice versa. The degree of mixing between these two worlds gives rise to the concepts we know as augmented reality and virtual reality.
The augmented reality (AR) is a simplification of the mixed reality where the user is stimulated with virtual contents in real time.
Virtual reality (VR), however, consists of virtual iteration with virtual objects in a virtual environment.
The AR and MR technologies have a wide field of work in the medical field, such as the fusion of the 3D data of the medical examination with the patient’s view that allows improving the precision in the diagnoses. AR has a clear application in supporting surgery, while VR is more suitable for simulation without the actual patient. Any of these technologies can be used for the training of doctors and medical students, as they improve the situation and the spatial awareness of the practitioner. In addition, the patient can also be supported by a variety of applications through this technology focused on training, treatment, rehabilitation…
These technologies have been used for many years in different aspects of medicine. After the explication of these three reality types, my next post will be based on the application of them in the health field.
With this post I would like to take up the theme of under road heating, in order to delve a bit more into the benefit that can have heating the most critical points of the road.
As I already indicated, the current solution to avoid and eliminate icing on the roads is the application of chemical deicers, which we all know as “road salt”. To a greater or lesser extent, this substance is sodium chloride, an inexpensive and effective product. I would like to stop here for a little reflection, are we really aware of the damage we are doing using these substances? Surely not, that’s why people rejoice when they see the salt spread.
Millions of tons are scattered annually on our roads, often without proper distribution to the road and with excessive frequency. For this reason, I would like to highlight some of its harmful consequences:
The vegetation near the road is the first to suffer the negative effects of salt, on the one hand, the high concentrations of chloride make it a toxic element, causing the gilding or burning of the leaves, and on the other hand, the High concentrations of sodium can affect plant growth by altering soil structure, permeability and aeration
A significant proportion of the salt is washed away by rainwater reaching aquifers, reservoirs, rivers, wetlands, etc., causing a dramatic increase in the risk of contamination of delicate ecosystems and even in many cases of the water we drink.
Salt greatly affects the health of wildlife from two points of view: due to the serious consequences of its consumption due to its toxicity, especially to birds, and the frequency of run over, since salt attracts the animals for their ingestion.
Another point that we hardly consider is the soil, although its degradation is a serious problem for Europe. Salt reduces the stability of the soil, modifies its electrical conductivity, decreases its pH and in general, seriously impairs its fertility.
As we can see, the environmental impact of chemical deicers is very intense, therefore, we should try to make an effort to minimize their effect, using all the technology that is within our reach to achieve a less aggressive winter maintenance
A partial solution would be to be able to measure in real time the amount of chemical deicers at each point of the road, not just at a fixed point. This would only be achieved by loading the sensors into the intervention and maintenance vehicles. Currently, there are some systems under development that measure wheel splatter, measuring the water refraction index (Japan Highway Public Corporation) or electrical conductivity (University of Cone). Given their results, they have never been incorporated into the market.
From CARTIF, with the collaboration of the Spanish company Collosa, we are investigating in the development of this product. The objectives are to avoid spreading more road salt when the current quantities are sufficient, to throw only the necessary quantity in the precise place that needs it (given the system of global positioning of these devices) and to give an objective tool to the responsible of the winter maintenance, so that he can make the right decision.
In CARTIF we are committed to a final solution that avoids dispersing chemical deicers as far as possible. If we manage to attack the problem in the most dangerous points, preventing and avoiding the formation of ice, we will avoid the exit of the truck to cover those points with chemical deicers. In addition, this outlet will not only cover the dangerous points, but will spread the chemical deicers all over the road.
This solution is the development of a more economical radiant floor with more energy efficiency, based on geothermal energy. For this, the development of an intelligent prediction that prevents the formation of ice and is based on the use of new bituminous mixtures is fundamental.
Undoubtedly, this will mean a significant reduction in the environmental impact of winter maintenance on our roads and in particular in the most sensitive areas of our geography such as natural parks.
Have you ever wondered how a R&D project arises? How is it possible, for example, to be able to apply a photocatalytic treatment in the heart of a big city like Madrid? Ensuring respect of the environment through R&D requires a detailed plan of action, which involves many different actors and implies a very interesting four-phase sequence, to allow all the pieces fit.
Let’s see the recipe for success:
1) IDEA. Also known as the phase “Eureka!”. It is referred to that moment when, due to a known environmental issue, a company / organization / administration decides to contact a technological center to find a solution. Or, on the contrary, CARTIF researchers, on their continued commitment to update the state of the art of the technologies they develop, decide to look for a company committed to the environment to work on a new challenge.
2) APPLIED RESEARCH. It is named, in petit committee, as the phase “Let’s see what we have here”. Once the environmental issue to be addressed is identified, together with the science principles in which it is based on, it is time to decide how to apply them to the areas of demand. We have to use the generated knowledge by basic research and lead to the environmental problems selected in the phase of Idea. Here the purpose is always to produce technology for the development of the environmental issues addressed in the previous stage and the possibility of having additional aid, which supports part of the funding, can also be recommendable. These grants enable companies to address this phase with more resources and multiply, consequently, the scope of their results. Spanish calls of CDTI are well suited for this aim.
3) DEMONSTRATION. Also denominated “The time to act is now“. We know the scientific principles and we have checked that, at a laboratory level, the technology developed works. Then comes the time to expand the scale and test it at a higher level. For this phase, it is again very interesting to have the possibility of support from external financing. For instance, calls for proposals for LIFE Grants are the only EU financial instrument fully dedicated to the environment. Currently, there are 10 on-going LIFE projects running in CARTIF and the topics addressed are very diverse, do you know them?.
4) COMMUNICATION. At last but not least, it is important to publish the results obtained, because of that, this stage is named “shouting to the four winds”. Environmental awareness inevitably involves knowing on what work is being performed, the rate of progress, what improvements are being made and which companies are involved on the issue. Scientific publications and patents are a good starting point for us, as a technological center, but there are also other forms, such as environmental labels and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to make visible which companies have a commitment with the environment.
Let us look at a successful example:
The problem of poor urban air quality due to environmental pollution by nitrogen oxides is an important environmental threat for the cities. Being able to reduce this issue is presented as a great challenge (phase: Eureka!). CARTIF participated in FENIX project few years ago, working actively, among other tasks, in the study, identification and selection of photocatalytic nanomaterials (phase: let’s see what we have here). Based on the good results achieved, some of the partners involved in this action decided to keep working and contacted the City of Madrid to increase the scale of the research and to ask for applying the developed treatment in the streets of the city centre (phase: the time to act is now). After that, LIFE EQUINOX, a R&D project began, coordinated by CARTIF, in October 2013, and it is still in progress (phase: shouting to the four winds).
Let us not forget, therefore, that it will always be better not to put the cart before the horse.
From the reproduction of vital organs to the construction of shelters in space, so revolutionary is the future of 3D printing. With this perspective, it is not surprising that many people ensure that this way of materializing objects will change our lives to unsuspected levels. We can say that a new industrial and technological revolution is taking place in the same way that when Internet appeared in our lives, a network of which many of us doubted in its beginnings and that has changed our world.
Currently, 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is fully deployed in the aerospace industry, in the engineering, architecture, defense, automotive and medicine. Its main applications are the reproduction of 3D scans and the printing of objects designed with three-dimensional modeling programs (CAD), which allow reducing the time of development of new products or even launch them to the market.
Its implications are endless. It is not already necessary to wait months to have a huge quantity of the first model of an object to launch a product, due to three-dimensional model can be sent hundreds or thousands of kilometers away to become an object in any place. In this way, in the future, a lot of industrial production will be on demand and will travel online, and will completely change the idea of consuming products, because every person has the ability to customize their own products with a great advantage: the exclusivity of each article.
Although the majority of current 3D printings are not able to produce very tough, economical and even useful pieces enough to replace traditional production ways, they have a very relevant application nowadays; educate in the use of technology.
In relation to the future, from the social point of view, I think that the true revolution of printing will not be a specific application or use, but the speed with which this technology, which today it looks like magic, will turn into something essential for our lives. From the technical point of view, at the same time that technologies will be capable to depositing materials, we will see a growing emergence of functional parts that fully exploit the capabilities of additive manufacturing.
Something very revolutionary will be the 3D printing applied to medicine, reconstructive, maxillofacial, or orthodontic traumatology, where is already being investigated with biompatible materials that will give the possibility of making organs accepted by humans and surgeons will have in a few days of objects to solve the problems of each person in a specialized way.
In short: 3D printing has come to say and change the way we consume and produce forever.
During these dates we usually toast at Christmas celebrations. The idea is to toast with a frothy drink, although sometimes we don´t know how to differentiate well one from the other, because we may confuse the terms “sparkling wine”, “cava” and “champagne”.
Cava and champagne are two types of sparkling wine that are elaborated in the same way, using the “champenoise méthode”, with similar grape varieties; besides, the first is elaborated in Spain and the second in France. The cava came out in the late nineteenth century while champagne dates from to the seventeenth century. Taking into account also that the climate and soil influence the quality of the grape, it’s very difficult to compare, even using the same method.
The French drink with bubbles was known in its beginnings as “champagne”, in honor of the champenoise method, but when Spain joined the EU, our French neighbors claimed their right in exclusivity, with which Spain could not elaborate this sparkling wine and also call it champagne, since it was only valid for sparkling wines produced in the region of Champagne; so it was decided to re-baptize this Spanish Designation of Origin as Cava Designation of Origin (D.O.), doing honor to the underground cellars or cavas, where these sparkling wines were elaborated.
Another difference is that to bottle up champagne, it can be mixed grapes of different vintages, compensating the quality by this way. When it is made only with one vintage, it is called “millesime” or “vintage“. By contrast, in the cava the typical thing is to bottle wines of a single vintage.
After explaining the terms, let’s focus on the Cava D.O., the Spanish.
Usually, D.O. refer to a particular region, for example, Ribera del Duero D.O., La Mancha D.O., even in non-wine products, such as Sierra de Cazorla Oils, Rincón de Soto Pears, Cabrales Cheese. The Cava D.O.is the only denomination of Spanish origin that puts the vinification method (the traditional champagnoise or second fermentation in bottle) to its geographical origin. Of course, it is not possible to label a sparkling Spanish with the “word” cava if it is not produced in officially recognized zones or wineries.
In the case of wine, the Cava denomination is the only denomination of Spanish supraterritorial origin, together with Rioja; this means that it exceeds the autonomic borders, although more than 98% of Cava’s total production comes from Catalonia, existing also production areas in municipalities in other regions.
The Regulation of the Cava Denomination and its Regulatory Council was approved by Order of 14.11.91 (BOE 20.11.91) and modified by different Orders. Prior to these Regulations, on February 27, 1986, the Order establishing the reservation of the “Cava” Denomination was published for quality sparkling wines produced by the traditional method in the region determined therein. But there were a number of sparkling winemakers that already made the production of wine base and/or cava prior to the entry into force of the Order of 1986. That is why, within the terms of reference of the regulations there are a number of exceptions that apply to certain wineries that may use the term “Cava D.O.” even if they occur in municipalities that are not among the 159 that are mentioned in the Regulation.
The curiosity is that of the wineries that are mentioned as exceptions there are one of Zaragoza, one of Girona, one of Valencia, one of Barcelona (regions included in the Cava Region), but there is one winery in the region of Burgos, one wine cellar of Aranda de Duero that, although it is not included in the Cava region, can elaborate sparkling wines by labeling them as Cava D.O. Strange, isn´t it?
