Future of the Food-Chain

[labelwench]

When we disconnect from the understanding that it is nature which provides all food, we place ourselves on the path to extinction, IMO. The following quote by one who is well known. LW

In an urban setting, we live in a human-created environment, surrounded by other people plus a few domesticated plants and animals, as well as the pests that have overcome our defenses. Living among such a dearth of species, we no longer recognize our dependence on the rest of life for our well-being and our very survival. It is simpler to assume that the economy delivers our food, clean air, water and energy and takes away our sewage and waste. We forget that the Earth itself provides all these services, and so makes economists and the economy possible. We are biological beings, as dependent on the biosphere as any other life form and we forget our animal nature at our peril. (David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies)

[labelwench]

The manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup are launching an expensive and timely process to change the name of their product to 'corn sugar' in an effort to disassociate themselves from the perceived negative effects of consuming this item in anything but moderation.

The research is mixed, with many stating that 'sugar is sugar' and the body treats all sugars in much the same manner.

Most agree that we are getting far more sugar in our diet than we require and this is contributing to weight gain and possibly other negative factors to our health.

High fructose corn syrup is an incredibly cheap flavor enhancer, and it can be found in pickles, spaghetti sauces, and the majority of packaged and processed foods, many which the average consumer would not even expect or suspect. Those lovely golden brown French fries that North Americans are so fond of are dusted with dextrose, precisely to achieve that effect and flavor.

What is dextrose, you ask?

Corn sugar.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39169416...consumer_news/

[Meem]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...for-six-months


Look Mom, it's 6 months old and it looks 1 day old. Makes me happy, feed me more!

[labelwench]

Everybody has to eat, and the cost of basic food groups is forecast to rise based on crop shortages in several areas. One example from recent years is rice. Over a year ago, rice almost doubled in price and has yet to recover. A 20 kg bag jumped from 21.00 to 36.00. Previously it would go on sale for $14.98 and this year, the best price I have seen offered is $25.98, with $35.98 remaining the usual base price. On the occasion when it does go on sale, some families will come and get as many as they can fit in a cart, with each family member purchasing the limit allowed, usually 2 but sometimes 4 bags.

Are we going to see a similar trend in future on other foods?

Certainly for persons on a fixed income, any marked increase in the cost of food is going to pose a hardship.

Corn is up 45 percent the last three months. We haven't seen cotton prices this high since after the Civil War. Soybeans are up. Oil is up. Metals are up. So are coffee and cocoa.

In this era of massive liquidity, everything is up, except for food prices—specifically processed food (made from many of the same commodities and other ingredients whose prices have risen).

According to the USDA, that is going to change. In its most recent CPI report for food, the USDA reported that prices are expected to rise in 2011.

For all food, prices are expected to rise two to three percent, which is double the levels of 2010. Meat prices are expected to rise up to 3.5 percent, and dairy 5.5 percent.

"The forecast for 2011, that remains unchanged, but it's moving to the higher part of that range," said Ephraim Leibtag, who serves as a senior economist for the USDA and out together the report. He added, "The potential to go above that is more likely if current commodity price increases remain where they are or rise even more.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPI...iforecasts.htm

[labelwench]

Stocking the soup aisle last night, and I had occasion to fill a well known brand name of cream of mushroom soup, which comes in three variants in the 284 ml (10 oz) size which one reconstitutes with an equal amount of water and heats.

I don't buy very many canned goods, but I was curious that the three soups ranged widely in price, although all were the same size, by the same company, and their cost of producing should be nigh identical.

This is what I observed:

(Brand name) Mushroom soup. Cost - $1.09 per tin Per 125 ml (4 0z) portion. 110 cal. 2 gr. protein, 11% fat DV, 35% sodium DV

BN Low fat Mushroom soup Cost - $1.79 per tin Per 125 ml (4 0z) portion. 70 cal. 2 gr. protein, 3% fat DV, 27% sodium DV

BN Less salt Mushroom soup Cost - $2.29 per tin Per 125 ml (4 0z) portion. 70 cal. 3 gr. protein, 3% fat DV, 26% sodium DV

That the market would tolerate paying over twice as much for a soup that has items removed from the recipe, is mind boggling.

The low fat and less salt variants are so close to identical as to make the numbers meaningless.

People are so conditioned to following the hype of advertising that they don't bother to do their own research, and the information printed on the product packaging.

Truly, these things boggle my mind.

[labelwench]

After the season of festivity and 'sport-eating', there will be some whose New Year's resolution will be to lose weight, and cut back on sugar, among other things. 'Sweet' is a taste that we have grown fond of since we have learned to extract it from a variety of sources that do not require engaging a hive of protective stinging insects. Which sweetener is the better among the various options available to us?

I leave the reader to do their own research as to personal preference, but I do want to draw your attention to the fact that the natural plant Stevia, has not been approved as a sweetener, yet two derivatives of this plant have been fast-tracked for approval in the soft-drink industry.

Do some research on Truvia and Purevia, then grow your own Stevia plant at home, after picking one up at a nursery this spring.

It's all about the money. Always has been and always will be.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Posted by Tanya on December 15, 2010 in Featured Article

Some time ago we got excited because we “thought” big business was listening to us. Coke teased us with a pairing of America’s favorite soft drink sweetened with a natural sweetener. And we waited … for nothing. Here’s the story …

What is Stevia?
Stevia Rebaudiana is the name of an herb in the Chrysanthemum family. It grows as a small, wild shrub in parts of Paraguay and Brazil. The glycosides in its leaves account for its sweetness and the crude leaves are reported to be 10 to 15 times sweeter than table sugar. The refined extracts are reputed to be as much as 200 to 300 times sweeter. You can purchase Stevia as a plant from many nurseries these days and grow it in your own backyard. Without additives, it has virtually no calories.

So why don’t they use Stevia as a sweetener?
In September of 1995, the FDA approved Stevia and its extracts to be imported as a “food supplement” but not as a sweetener. It defines Stevia as an unapproved food additive, not affirmed as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe). Why? In many folks’ opinion, it’s a matter of politics⎯yet again. Because Stevia is a natural substance, it cannot be patented. And that which cannot be patented, cannot profited by exclusively. It’s that simple. And this is where the story gets good … or bad … depending on your take.

The Unholy Marriage of Coke and Stevia (and Their Love Affair With the FDA)
Because the nonpatentable, natural Stevia would have been a major competitor for the multbillion dollar alternative sweetener industry, the powers that be went into the lab and created Truvia™ ⎯also known as Rebiana®, an abbreviation for Rebaudioside A, one of the many sweet-tasting compounds in Stevia. Rebaudioside A has the least bitter after-taste of all compounds in natural Stevia, so the Coca Cola Company, faced with consumer pressure to remove aspartame from their products, poured and tested, created and manufactured, tweaked and retweaked, until they produced, Truvia™. Then they took their new chemical compound to the FDA, and voila! It’s approved ⎯despite that they still will not approve the natural plant from whence it came, citing the absence of “long-term safety research.” Likewise, PepsiCo conducted its own science experiment and created PureVia™⎯also approved. Both reportedly have a number of side-effects.

Now let’s consider this a moment … they’ll approve a substance that was just manipulated into existence two minutes ago (in the grand scheme of things), without the remotest possibility that long-term studies have been done because it’s brand-spanking new, barely slapped on the rear, so to speak. But they won’t approve the plant that has been around for God knows how long?

There is definitely something wrong with that picture.

[labelwench]

The quality that people seek most of all in a food is flavor.

Today's sophisticated spectrometers, gas chromatographs, and headspace vapor analyzers provide a detailed map of a food's flavor components, detecting chemical aromas in amounts as low as one part per billion. The human nose, however, is still more sensitive than any machine yet invented. A nose can detect aromas present in quantities of a few parts per trillion - an amount equivalent to 0.000000000003 percent.

Taken from Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser

The smell of a strawberry arises from the interaction of at least 350 chemicals, present in minute amounts, while a complex aroma such as coffee or roasted meat may be composed of the volatile gases from nearly a thousand different chemicals. The Food and Drug Administration does not require flavor companies to disclose the ingredients of their additives, so long as all the chemicals are considered by the agency to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe). In most cases there would not be sufficient room on the packaging to list all of the chemicals, as the ubiquitous phrase 'artificial strawberry flavor' requires a half page in a book alone to list all the components thereof, and there may be several flavors added to a product to attain a particular result.

Customers are starting to indicate a preference for 'natural flavor' over artificial flavor, yet a natural flavor is not necessarily more pure or healthier than an artificial one as per the following example, taken also from the book I am presently reading.

When almond flavor (benzaldehyde) is derived from natural sources, such as peach or apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived through a different process - by mixing oil of clove and the banana flavor amyl acetate - does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature. Calling any of these flavors 'natural' requires a flexible attitude toward the English language and a fair amount of irony.

For myself, it is 'natural' only if the resulting flavor is result of interaction with the environment at the most basic levels. A freshly pulled carrot, the leaves of lambs-quarter (a wild spinach, generally regarded as a weed), pink bottom mushrooms after a rain, rose-hips and cranberries that grow at will in the various micro-climates that comprise my backyard.

[labelwench]

The following 3 minute video gives numbers and statistics that are relevant to Canada, yet the trend holds true throughout most of North America.

Fertile farmland is being paved over and we are producing less and less of our own food.

The 'fresh' fruits and vegetables that we see at the supermarket have traveled thousands of kilometers and taken days in transit, while the varieties being grown are selected and bred more for durability than for nutritional value.

Then there is the exponential amount of energy required to transport and refrigerate these products while in transit and interim storage.

Yet they are 'cheaper' some will say, so this must be the most viable way of growing food.

'Cheaper' only on an artificial scale of fiat money and 'cheap' labor, that does not factor in the true cost of the harm to our planet or the denial of a living wage and a life of dignity to our fellow man.

Wake up, people.

It is WE who are the oppressors when we want the highest-paying jobs, and the least expensive cost of living, with the widest range of options.

Perhaps we should quit pointing our fingers in every other direction, when EACH ONE OF US HAS THE POWER OF CHOICE.

What we buy can make the difference.

[labelwench]

In the course of my work, I have ever made it a practice to read the labels and ingredients of new products. Not very long ago, all of our labels for flour changed, indicating that there was some reason for this item needing a new UPC (universal product code or identifying number). Where previously flour consisted of simply ground wheat, unless it had been bleached, was a multi-grain product or had a leavening agent incorporated, now I observe that Amylase has been added to all of the flours. So I did a bit of research on what the purpose of this ingredient may be and came up with the following, which should be of concern to any whose belief system forbids the ingestion of pork or pork products.

Amylase enzymes find use in bread making and to break down complex sugars such as starch (found in flour) into simple sugars. Yeast then feeds on these simple sugars and converts it into the waste products of alcohol and CO2. This imparts flavour and causes the bread to rise. While Amylase enzymes are found naturally in yeast cells, it takes time for the yeast to produce enough of these enzymes to break down significant quantities of starch in the bread. This is the reason for long fermented doughs such as sour dough. Modern bread making techniques have included amylase enzymes (often in the form of malted barley) into bread improver thereby making the bread making process faster and more practical for commercial use.[3]

When used as a food additive Amylase has E number E1100, and may be derived from swine pancreas or mould mushroom.

Bacilliary amylase is also used in clothing and dishwasher detergents to dissolve starches from fabrics and dishes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase

[theunify]

On Earth? I hear there are oceans on several moons in our solar system and it was announced of a multiperson vehicle to travel to an asteroid by NASA,

The Earth's system is fragile to overconsumption but those who think of it as a prison are guilty of at least failing to grasp the science of a close ecosystem.

People think we are doomed to lose the planet and all life on it, but what they don't realize is there willb be survivors from animal and plant species that return and it's up to use , to us rather to protect further damage and to educate people about th the science of a closed ecosystem.

I ag

~theunify

In the course of my work, I have ever made it a practice to read the labels and ingredients of new products. Not very long ago, all of our labels for flour changed, indicating that there was some reason for this item needing a new UPC (universal product code or identifying number). Where previously flour consisted of simply ground wheat, unless it had been bleached, was a multi-grain product or had a leavening agent incorporated, now I observe that Amylase has been added to all of the flours. So I did a bit of research on what the purpose of this ingredient may be and came up with the following, which should be of concern to any whose belief system forbids the ingestion of pork or pork products.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase