Resumo

GARCIA-CASAL, María Nieves. The alimentation of the future: New technologies and their importance for the nutrition of populations. An Venez Nutr [online]. 2007, vol.20, n.2, pp.108-114. ISSN 0798-0752.

This review issues a general description about world food production and availability and the possible solutions to the evident risk of food insecurity in the years to come. In some countries food production is already insufficient and hunger and under nutrition grave problems. The objective of this work was to offer a general view of the actual situation and the immediate future regarding alimentation in the planet, reviewing concepts as functional and transgenic foods, nutrigenomics and nanotechnologies, applied to food production and commercialisation. The new experimental technologies have produced important advances in knowledge about the potential of food to maintain or improve health. The possibilities of using foods according to our unique genetic composition or to genetically modify them to obtain certain nutrients or to liberate only certain active components, is a reality nowadays. However, it is important to highlight that in front of the important advances occurred in food technology and the promising future in terms of alimentation, health, quality of life and life expectations with the so called new foods and technologies, there is an overwhelming reality of hunger and under nutrition around the world.

Palavras-chave : Alimentation of the future; nanotechnologies; trangenesis; nutrigenomics; under nutrition.