Programme details

The relationship between health and diet is targeted by the European project Seafood Plus.
Doctors and consumers agree that quality of meals is an important factor to combat deficiencies and reduce serious diseases. Consumption of seafood is an important factor for a healthy diet.

Objectives of Seafood Plus

The overall objective with Seafood+ is to take out the health benefits from consuming seafood. That is to prevent the major diseases that we are seeing in Europe and that is also to increase the consumer well being
Seafood+ groups 70 partners from 15 European countries and Canada.
To reach the objective of improving the health of the European population, particularly by fighting cardio-vascular disease and certain forms of cancer, the Seafood Plus project is organizing research along six specific, but completely interdependent lines.

Seafood and Nutrition

This is the starting point for Seafood +. Epidemiological studies have shown that there is a link between the quality of nutrition and the quality of health in human beings.

Seafood and Consumer Behaving and Well-Being

The second facet of the project is to see what the level of consumption of seafood products is in Europe and which elements are determinant.
Therefore Seafood Plus researchers are trying to describe and predict the factors that influence consumption of seafood products.

Seafood Safety

This is a crucial point for European researchers and consumers because products from the sea could entail certain risks for human health if they contain harmful bacteria or viruses.
To avoid this kind of situation, all possible risks of contamination must be identified and where possible eliminated.

Seafood from Source to Consumer Product

As concerns preservation, meaning improving the safety of fishing products, we will be developing new preservation processes so we can obtain products in demand by consumers - products ready to be consumed, and easy to prepare by the consumer.

Seafood from Aquaculture

The important point is ensuring high nutritional quality and tastiness of products that meet consumer demands. Taste is also a factor for aquacultural products. Consumers often complain that this kind of product has relatively poor taste.
Seafood Plus intends to study the relationship between the food used in these aquaculture tanks and the quality of the flesh and the fat-muscle ratio of these products. Then we will be able to make healthier products for the final consumer.

Traceability

Traceability is the last concern of Seafood + and an important aspect for European consumers.
Traceability refers to the ability to establish the history of a food product through all its stages.

Seafood Consumption

The average consumption in Europe for seafood is about 24kg per person per year. But the trend is that we see in some regions, in some age groups there is a tendency of consuming less seafood. In particular for young people, they are eating not as much seafood as the older people.
Encouraging young people all over the European Union to consume more fish is a parallel objective of Seafood Plus.

Conclusion

The initial objective of Seafood Plus is to reduce health problems of Europeans by offering them healthy, high quality, easy-to-prepare seafood products.