Evaluation of Differences in Physical Properties, Cooking Behaviour and Starch Digestibility of Different Rice Varieties Associated Also to Management Strategies

To deal with climate change and environmental degradation, Europe is proposing a new model of sustainable growth, recognizing the inseparable link between the health of people, societies and the planet. The Farm to Fork strategy aims to make the European agrifood system a model of sustainability for all countries in the world. In this context, agriculture plays a key role in making the food system robust and resilient, able to meet the challenges of the future. Italian rice cultivation, being a very important sector for Europe, requires a sustainability assessment that considers all aspects: environmental, economic, social, governance and quality of the final product since these affect all the actors in the supply chain, from producer to consumer. About rice as a final product of cultivation, since 2018 several studies have been carried out to compare physical properties, cooking behavior and starch digestibility at the University of Milan. A first experiment took place thanks to the international project funded by the National Institute of Crop Science, Rural Development Administration (RDA) of Korea launched in 2018 and concluded in 2021 involving the University of Milan stimulated the interest to evaluate a comparison of physical properties, cooking behavior and starch digestibility considering five Tongil-type and six Japonica-type varieties (Experiment 1). Since 2020, the interest has emerged in comparing varieties of Italian rice grown with Organic and Conventional methods (Experiment 2)