While hygienic and food safety are concerned with overseeing the microbiological, chemical, biological and physical safety of food, nutritional safety is aimed at ensuring the intake of nutrients essential to our well-being while limiting the intake of components that may be harmful to health.
Characterizes nutritionally balanced preparations, such that they enable proper development, both physical and mental, of those who consume them.
The 4 key factors of nutritional security
Nutritional safety in cooking is characterized by 4 factors:
- Quality raw materials.
- Right amounts of calories and nutrients according to GDAs.
- Cooking methods and food technologies that increase the bioavailability of vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals and minimize the production of substances hazardous to health.
- Correct combinations of ingredients that make the nutritional properties of foods effective.
A food responds to hygienic and food safety if it is produced aseptically and according to precise food production standards, but it is also nutritionally safe if it has an adequate caloric and nutritional content in accordance with GDAs (gudelines diary amounts). In other words, it meets nutritional safety if it is rich in healthful substances such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, and at the same time low in substances that are potentially harmful to health such as fats and particularly saturated fats, simple sugars, and salt.
To give a concrete example, a pizza or ice cream that is hygienically and nutritionally safe may not be nutritionally safe if it is high in calories, low in vitamins, and high in simple fats and sugars.
In 2011, the Project “The Wellness Kitchen, a project for nutritional safety in collective and commercial catering” promoted by ASSIC – Association for Nutritional Safety in the Kitchen, obtained the patronage of the Ministry of Health.
Project goals:
- Effectively contribute to the prevention of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, cancers, premature aging, and other diet-related diseases through the dissemination of healthy cooking.
- Delivering nutrition and culinary training and education to food service workers and the general public, with the collaboration of chefs, doctors and dietitians to spread healthy and tasty cuisine.
- To provide catering companies with continuing education for staff (directors, cooks, service staff) with the goal of achieving a catering offering that adheres to LARNs and INRAN’s healthy eating guidelines.
The highest expression of the project is Cucina Evolution, the new culinary culture that adds a decidedly important extra ingredient to traditional Italian cuisine: anti-aging wellness.
It therefore marks the evolution of tradition: the most delicious dishes of our cuisine become true wellness.
One concrete form of realizing this new food culture is the creation of products certified for Nutritional Safety.
