Young Danes become co-creators of a New Nordic Food Culture - 07.03.2011

On Friday 4 March, 150 upper secondary school students from all over Denmark met Danish Minister for Health, Bertel Haarder and nutrition researchers at LIFE. The aim was to get the students involved in the New Nordic Diet – so that they can help create a healthier, more delicious and more sustainable food culture among the Danes. The research centre OPUS, which is based at LIFE, was the organiser of the seminar.

 

The seminar was held at LIFE on Friday 4 March in connection with the Faculty’s 153^rd anniversary and was based on a theme booklet which was published that same day and which focuses on the New Nordic Diet.

 

The booklet is published as part of a study carried out by the research centre OPUS into the health potential of Nordic raw materials. The study runs from 2009 to 2014 thanks to a DKK 100 mill grant from Nordea-Fonden. The theme booklet is in Danish and in translation its title reads ‘The New Nordic Diet- creating a sustainable food culture’.

 

Students presented ideas to the minister

The seminar at LIFE consisted of a mixture of lectures by young researchers and workshops in which the visiting students created their own lunch and developed their own ideas on how the New Nordic Diet can help create a healthy, delicious and sustainable food culture among the Danes.

 

At the end of the seminar, the upper secondary school students presented their best ideas to Minister for Health Bertel Haarder who was pleased to gain an insight into young people’s perspectives on how to solve some of Denmark’s health problems.

 

OPUS: sustainable food culture

The OPUS research project is headed by professor, Doctor of Medicine, Arne Astrup:

- It is very enriching for research to gain this opportunity to have a dialogue with such a large group of young people. The upper secondary school students who attended the seminar at LIFE include future representatives of Denmark and thereby some of the people we will rely on if we are to succeed in creating a sustainable food culture and real changes in the health of the Danes, said Arne Astrup, and he continued:

- Furthermore, we see it as an acknowledgement of the importance of both the OPUS research project and the young people that our minister for health chooses to take part in the seminar. We are very pleased with that. The minister thereby he also sends an important signal that both our research and the young people have been noticed in government circles.

 

Download the Danish theme booklet  on the New Nordic Diet.

 

For more information on OPUS and the seminar, please contact:

 

Arne Astrup,
Professor and head of OPUS research centre

telephone: +45 2143 3302

Kristian Levring Madsen

Communication officer
OPUS Communication

telephone: +45 4048 1684