Rafael Urrialde, doctor in Biological Sciences, entered as a corresponding academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) during a ceremony that was held on September 20 in the Assembly Hall of the Catalan labor National Work Development. The recipient read the admission speech “Evolución de la información relacionada con la alimentación y la nutrición: retos de adaptación por el consumidor” (Evolution of information related to food and nutrition: challenges of adaptation by the consumer). On behalf of the Royal Corporation answered the full academician Lluís Serra.
The new academician explains how different peoples and civilizations have guaranteed a healthy diet or, at least, not harmful
The new academician reviews in his work how different peoples and civilizations have guaranteed a healthy diet or, at least, not harmful. Something that in the era of labelling and culinary culture is unquestionable. And how the discovery of America and the eastern routes and the subsequent commercial exchanges revolutionized the European diet. He highlights how until well into the industrial age and urban life the search for proteins went beyond meat, reserved for much of the history of humanity to the wealthier classes.
Urrialde also highlights how the main advance of the last century in terms of food isn’t only the variety and availability of food, unthinkable in previous times, but food hygiene, something also novel since conservation ceased to be the only priority of numerous societies that devised and transmitted their own techniques.
Member of different scientific committees related to food and nutrition, the new academician is the author and co-author of scientific publications related to nutrition education. He was head of Health and Food Safety in Puleva Food, director of the Health and Food Department in the Consumers Union of Spain, technical coordinator of the magazine “Ciudadano”, analysis technician of the Institute of the Cold of the Spanish Superior Council of Scientific Research and collaborator of the Chair of Plant Physiology of the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid. He is currently director of Health and Nutrition at Coca-Cola Iberia.
