In November 2024, the Horizon Europe program launched the project DietWise: Systemic Solutions to Enhance Healthy and Sustainable Food Provision and Cooking at Home (project duration: 2024–2027). The DietWise project involves researchers and companies from Belgium and Greece, along with three partners from Lithuania. Vilnius University is one of the Lithuanian partners, with the project led by Prof. Dr. Rimantas Stukas, Head of the Department of Public Health at the Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University.
The main goal of the DietWise project is to develop tools that facilitate the provision of healthy and sustainable food while promoting cooking, consumption, and processing at home as an attractive option for all stakeholders. Using innovative methods and market self-regulation, the project aims to reduce informational noise in the field of nutrition and merge cultural and commercial aspects into a model for healthier and more sustainable food consumption. Citizens will benefit from new, science-based solutions that provide transformative experiences, enabling them to transition from passive observers to active contributors in shaping and improving their food environment.
The project will deliver valuable insights into motivating consumers to make healthy and sustainable choices, supported by empirical evidence gathered through big data analysis, extensive surveys, qualitative research, and experiments. Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and deep learning techniques will be applied in big data analysis. The project findings will be integrated into AI-driven social innovations to develop user-centered tools that promote healthier lifestyles. The results will deepen the understanding of how environmental factors influence attitudes toward healthy and sustainable food and cooking, how to motivate consumers to follow health-friendly dietary recommendations, and how to shape the digital food environment while involving the most vulnerable groups in the process.