A balanced diet and enough sleep and exercise will help strengthen your immune system.

Radiation can be used to determine the isotope ratio of a skeleton. This provides information about where our ancestors lived and what they consumed. Dr Andrea Waters has developed a revolutionary method that can trace patterns of consumption from tens of thousands of years ago.

By placing food at the centre of investigation, this Minor explores current-day debates on political, environmental, economic and cultural change at both the local and global levels.

A plant-based diet could improve the resilience of our food system. Moving to such a diet in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) alone could replace almost all the production losses from Russia and Ukraine. That’s what an international team of researchers conclude in Nature Food. Leiden…

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield, Prof.dr. B.J. Zwaan (Wageningen Universiteit)

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

This study focused on how households' food consumption and waste were adapted to lifestyles during COVID-19.

The power of personalized nutrition lies in being able to conduct clinical research on healthy people while capturing metabolic markers sensitive to the impact of environmental and metabolic stressors (e.g. diet, changing sex hormones and the menstrual cycle).

What does it mean to eat healthily and responsibly? This question is gaining a new urgency now that in many countries undernourishment is being overtaken by diseases of affluence, such as obesity, and we are also becoming more aware of the environmental impact of our eating habits. It’s time to take…

We know this, but we don’t act on it: eat healthily, move more, address our stress levels and sleep well. Internist and Professor of Diabetology Hanno Pijl is fascinated by the effect that a healthy lifestyle can have on health. He researches how this lifestyle is achievable and satisfying, for patients…

ASLU 7 - A.E. de Hingh

Cristina Grasseni’s project

How do different communities of residents in The Hague perceive and manage food waste in relation to citizenship (rights and responsibilities)?

Food security is increasingly under pressure due to rising inequality, climate change, and armed conflict. From 28 October, Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague offers a seven-week course

The research within the Food research programme at CML focuses on a transition towards sustainable food production and consumption systems. We investigate from a very small to a very large scale, at a local, national or international level. We do so by researching for example molecular tools, food systems,…

Grasseni's contribution to this special feature on food cultures, food systems, and agriculture in Europe builds upon her ongoing project Food citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale.

The ERC project 'Food citizens?' is a comparative analysis of a growing phenomenon in Europe: collective food procurement, namely networks of people who organize direct food production, distribution, and consumption.

Today, humanity produces sufficient calories, in theory, to feed the 7.7 billion people on the planet: the amount of food produced per person on the planet has gone up more than 40% since the 1960s. Yet, ironically, the prevalence of undernourishment – which had been declining for decades – has started…

'Food Citizens? An anthropological project on collective food procurement in European cities

Food relations (through production, distribution, circulation, exchange and waste) represent the embodiment of our relation to the environment.

In September 2023 the new minor Sustainability, Climate Change and Food starts. This minor critically examines the complexities of food sustainability through ecological, socio-economic, political, and cultural systems.

Sustainably produced food reduces CO2 emissions during production and promotes the region’s economy. The University is working to increase the number of organic, fair trade, vegetarian and vegan products in its restaurants.

Nearly all the university buildings have cafés and restaurants and in the city there are plenty of places to eat or drink. These include regular or fast-food facilities at local supermarkets, food stalls, snack bars or restaurants of all types and nationalities.

The project 'Food citizens?' examines the consequences and premises of collective food procurement in three European cities (Rotterdam, Turin, and Gdańsk).

Once a month, the Europa Institute comes together to hear from its own staff members, guest researchers, or external scholars about their research plans, work in progress papers, or recently concluded projects relevant to European law. The Food for Thought-series is organised by Melanie Fink.

DIGIFOOD is a transnational research project that investigates how data governance can support equitable and sustainable digital food systems. Around the world, digital technologies are transforming agriculture. Sensors in soil, satellites in space, and mobile phones in farmers’ hands are generating…

This blogpost is a reflection of research assistant Marilena Poulopoulou on the food relief initiative she took part in between May and August 2020 in the city of Utrecht.

Cristina Grasseni, Federico de Musso, Ola Gracjasz, Maria Vasile, Vincent Walstra and Marilena Poulopoulou are part of the 'Food citizens?' Research project.

In 2021, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) asked Leiden University to conduct a rapid review of best practices and possibilities for follow-up research on the integration of behavioral sciences in security by design methodologies and projects. This academic field is called security by behavioral…

Isotopic insights on human diet from the later stone age to Neolithic in Northwest Africa, Morocco

Food waste is a defining inefficiency of the modern food system, with profound implications for resource use, climate change, and circular economy transitions. This dissertation examines food waste through two complementary lenses: the prevention of avoidable food waste and the valorization of unavoidable…

Practically the whole world came together on International Cultural Night on 29 November. International students got together on this night organised by Meeting Point for Refugee Students and showed their culture through dance, poetry, film and of course food. A great source of inspiration for fascinating…

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Autism, Alzheimer’s, and bipolar disorder: can the development of these mental health conditions be influenced by the ketogenic diet? Increasingly, research suggests it might. 'For those it helps, it can be life-changing,' says neuroscientist Eline Dekeyster.

PhD candidate Ola Gracjasz writes about fermentation practices in Gdańsk, Poland.