Fruitful Brewing: Exploring Consumers' and Producers' Attitudes towards Beer Produced with Local Fruit and Agroindustrial By-Products.

This study explored beer consumers' and producers' perceptions of using local fruit and agroindustrial by-products in brewing. An online survey was conducted in Italy with 496 beer consumers and 54 beer producers. The survey assessed sociodemographic information, consumption behavior, and support for brewery neolocalism, along with brewers' perceptions of the sustainability of their breweries.

Multicomponent (bio)markers for obesity risk prediction: a scoping review protocol.

Introduction: Despite international efforts, the number of individuals struggling with obesity is still increasing. An important aspect of obesity prevention relates to identifying individuals at risk at early stage, allowing for timely risk stratification and initiation of countermeasures. However, obesity is complex and multifactorial by nature, and one isolated (bio)marker is unlikely to enable an optimal risk stratification and prognosis for the individual; rather, a combined set is required.

Understanding Italian Consumers' Perception of Safety in Animal Food Products.

The concept of food safety is still underexplored among consumers, especially in relationship with the perception of food technology. Through an online survey ( = 489), this study explored: I, how perceived safety is related to products obtained with different technological treatments and described with different commercial information; II, the role of food technology neophobia (FTN) in consumers' safety perception of animal food products. The technological transformation and commercial information significantly affected the perceived safety in all product categories.

Crumbotti and rose petals in a ghost mountain valley: foraging, landscape, and their transformations in the upper Borbera Valley, NW Italy.

Background: The abandonment of mountain areas in Europe is a process that started during industrialisation and whose traces are still present nowadays. Initiatives aimed at stopping this decline and preserving the local biological and cultural diversities reflect the crucial issue of fostering sustainable rural development. This article contributes to the ongoing debate in assessing and preserving local ecological knowledge (LEK) in a highly marginalised mountain community in the Piedmontese Apennines to support local development.

Why the ongoing occupation of Ukraine matters to ethnobiology.

Ethnobiology and ethnomedicine investigate the continuously changing complex and inextricable relations among culture, nature, and health. Since the emergence of modern ethnobiology a few decades ago, its essence and mission have been the study of biocultural diversities and the centers of its inquiries have been and are local communities and their co-evolutionary interrelationships between natural environments and social systems. At the core of ethnobiologists' work there are not only conceptualizations of and reflections on others' views about nature and the universe, but also a robust commitment to advocacy in defense of these assemblages of local ecological knowledge, practices, and beliefs (LEK).

Building a safety buffer for European food security: the role of small-scale food production and local ecological and gastronomic knowledge in light of COVID-19.

The lockdown caused by the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) has created a situation in which food availability is affected not only by the availability of money but also by the availability of food itself. On the basis of five pillars, including 1) supporting community-based farming, 2) defending small firms, 3) developing narratives on the high value of local food, 4) encouraging subsistence gardening and foraging in the wild, and 5) promoting local ecological and gastronomic knowledge, the essay points a way forward to attain greater sustainability and resilience of safe food chains that starts with reassessing the relevance of local food systems.

Linking producers' and consumers' perceptions in the valorisation of non-timber forest products: An analysis of Ogiek forest honey.

This work aims to present a multidisciplinary approach that combines methodologies from economic anthropology and sensory science to valorise non-timber forest products; this is performed by using Kenyan forest honey as a case study to foster a positive alignment between producers and consumers living in the target market. Firstly, ethnographic research was carried out in Kenya to analyse the core competences of the forest honey producers (n = 20) and to select honey samples for the sensory evaluation. Secondly, a consumer test was performed in Italy to investigate the perception of the sensory properties by using a rate-all-that-apply test and its hedonic responses for six forest honeys by subjects living in Italy (n = 50).

Renegotiating situativity: transformations of local herbal knowledge in a Western Alpine valley during the past 40 years.

Background: Mountain environments are fragile socio-ecological systems and the conservation of their biological and cultural diversities- seen as co-evolving, strongly intertwined entities-represents a crucial issue for fostering their sustainability. Very few ethnobiological studies have assessed in the mountainous regions of Europe how local botanical knowledge, which represents a vital portion of the local environmental knowledge (LEK), changes over time, although this may be quintessential for a better understanding of the factors influencing how knowledge and practices are shaped, eroded, or even re-created.

Methods: In the current study, we compared the gathering and use of local medicinal plants in the Upper Sangone Valley, Western Italian Alps, Piedmont (NW Italy) as described in a field study conducted in the mid-seventies and published in 1977 and those arising from field research that we conducted in the spring of 2015 and 2018, during which time ethnobotanical and ethnomycological information concerning both folk medicinal and wild food uses was obtained via 47 in-depth open and semi-structured interviews with community members.

Expanding the reach: ethnobotanical knowledge and technological intensification in beekeeping among the Ogiek of the Mau Forest, Kenya.

Background: Initiatives for beekeeping intensification across the tropics can foster production and income, but the changes triggered by the introduction of modern beehives might permeate traditional knowledge and practices in multiple ways, and as such should be investigated and understood. We conducted an ethnobotanical study in the Eastern part of the Mau Forest among Ogiek beekeepers who customarily practice forest beekeeping and who are involved in a project aimed at the modernization of their beekeeping activities. We aimed to document the beekeeping-associated ethnobotanical knowledge, exploring the relationships and complementarity between modern and traditional knowledge and practices.

Baby pangolins on my plate: possible lessons to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (JEET), throughout its 15 years of existence, has tried to provide a respected outlet for scientific knowledge concerning the inextricable links between human societies and nature, food, and health. Ethnobiology and ethnomedicine-centred research has moved at the (partially artificial and fictitious) interface between nature and culture and has investigated human consumption of wild foods and wild animals, as well as the use of wild animals or their parts for medicinal and other purposes, along with the associated knowledge, skills, practices, and beliefs. Little attention has been paid, however, to the complex interplay of social and cultural reasons behind the increasing pressure on wildlife.

The importance of tolerating interstices markets in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and their role in maintaining local food knowledge and diversity.

informal markets selling several homemade gastronomic plant and animal-based products and culinary preparations, as well as wild and cultivated plants, and sometimes family butchered barnyard animals are extremely popular in Ukraine. In this field study that we conducted over a few years we inventoried the most relevant food plant products sold in these markets and we analysed how these markets represent remarkable food refugia for several local niche foods. In addition, we researched the historical and socio-economic reasons for the start, survival, and revival of this phenomenon, which had its origin during the Communist period.