The project investigates how a century of pollution in Guanabara Bay has impacted marine life and the humans who consume these fish. The goal is to assess the nutritional quality of the fish compared to those from balanced environments, identify present toxins and the most vulnerable populations, and understand the difficulties in solving this historical problem.

The project involves journalists and marine scientists, who will produce an episode of the Prato Cheio podcast and educational materials for the Mesa Cheia initiative. The focus will be on the work of the UFF Laboratory of Radioecology and Environmental Changes, which studies the impacts of eutrophication on food webs in Guanabara Bay and Arraial do Cabo (RJ). The project will also highlight how scientific and journalistic practices complement each other to understand and communicate the effects of marine pollution.

“Prato Cheio” (Full Plate) is a podcast with a systemic and political view of food. Based on rigorous investigations, always with the best scientific evidence as a horizon, the program debates this fundamental issue of the 21st century with a light, personal and ironic tone.

Through reports, a special podcast series and a recorded online course, “Da mesa à ciência” (From the Table to Science), coordinated by journalists João Peres and Maíra Mathias, aims to popularize the scientific debate around products that have turned food systems around the world upside down: ultra-processed foods.