From 3 to 5 October 2022, the 2nd edition of GOZO, an international conference on healthy and sustainable school food, took place at the Bizkaia Aretoa Congress Centre in Bilbao, organized by Justicia Alimentaria and EHIGE.

This year’s programme focused on the role of institutions and public policies for healthier and more sustainable food consumption and social tools for controlling institutional power in the food sector.

CEIDSS was pleased to be present at this important conference, represented by nutritionist Sofia Mendes, who shared Portugal’s experience in promoting healthy eating habits and combating childhood obesity, highlighting the Portuguese law published on 23 April 2019 that restricts advertising aimed at under 16 years old for food and drink, as Spain recognizes the importance of regulating and implementing such a measure.

We would like to thank the organization for inviting us to share Portugal’s experience in promoting healthy eating habits and combating childhood obesity.

The “On the Food Route – Career Day” event was held on September 24th, organized by CEIDSS in partnership with EIT Food, an organization co-funded by the European Union that supports projects in the area of food systems, and with the municipality of Cascais.

The activity, which took place at Quinta do Pisão in Cascais, was attended by 150 school children and their families and aimed to raise awareness about the professions related to healthy and sustainable food, such as farmer, beekeeper, nutritionist and chef.

Participants were involved in recreational and educational activities, favouring family contact with nature, where they had the opportunity to explore issues related to the principles of healthy eating from a “Farm to Fork” perspective.

• Farmer

At the farmer’s station, the children were invited to learn about the day-to-day workings of the profession and had the opportunity to plant a lettuce, with the help of the farm’s professionals and their families, in order to go through all the necessary steps to get the plant in a pot, ready to start the growing process.

• Beekeeper

The beekeeper discussed the importance of bees for the food system and showed some of the products that result from bee activity, such as honeycombs. He also showed some of the safety equipment needed for his work.

• Nutritionist

At the nutritionist’s station, the children learnt the main messages that the Food Wheel conveys and played a game that allowed them to make associations between some of the foods they usually take in their lunchboxes and the recommended frequency with which they should consume them.

• Chef

To conclude the event, the chefs from FoodLab Cascais discussed what a typical day in their work is like and, together with the children, transformed some vegetables and herbs collected from the farm into a small snack, which the families were invited to taste.

The webinar “Emotional Hunger” aims to raise awareness of the issue of emotional hunger, as well as demystify this concept, talk about its causes and possible implications, and address some strategies that can help in this situation.

The webinar “Children’s (more) vegetarian diet” aims to raise awareness among teachers and carers of the importance of a (more) vegetarian diet, as well as the challenges that school-age children face when they adopt this dietary pattern. It also aims to demystify some issues related to vegetarian eating and provide tools to help understand how to meet the increased nutritional needs of this age group.