A workshop was organised in Vilnius on 15-16 April 2008 by VTT and the Nordic Grainity network to discuss the role and significance of cereal foods in Nordic and Baltic diets. Scientific evidence on health effects, as well as Nordic and Baltic actions and communication strategies for promoting consumption of healthy cereal foods were addressed in 14 presentations, which will be available at the website www.vtt.fi/proj/grainity.

Berry seminar gathered 2nd of April 2008 more than 100 participants together in Helsinki to discuss health effects of berries and exploitation potential of research in development of new berry products and their marketing. To see the presentations, click the following link: http://www.teknia.fi/main.asp?sid=1&sivu=25&kpl=79&o=25&ok=79&files=0&a=0. Notice that all of the presentations are in Finnish, except the presentation of Prof. Colette Shortt.

Alkylresorcinols are phenolic lipids, studied for possible use as biomarkers in human blood to evidence the intake of whole grain wheat and rye foods. In this paper, arising from the HEALTHGRAIN project, AR were shown to be exactly localised in testa. This means that they could also be used as a selective marker of this part of grain. Selective markers are needed to identify different milling fractions, and to show their presence in cereal foods.

Concentrations of the main dietary polyphenols, i.e. phenolic acids, anthocyanidins and other flavonoids, proanthocyanidins and ellagitannins (altogether 44 polyphenol compounds), were analyzed from pooled Finnish food samples in the laboratories of MTT Agrifood Research Finland and University of Kuopio, and entered into the national food composition database, Fineli. Among the 143 food items analyzed, berries were superior in terms of their total polyphenol concentrations, but coffee and cereal products are the main contributors to intake, due to their high consumption. In this study, the daily intake of polyphenols was 863 mg.