Currently in India 213 million people are food insecure and over 100 million are reliant on the national food welfare system
which uses huge quantities of wheat. This underlines how crucial it is to consider what types of wheat need to be grown in the coming decades to secure production.
Though the snakes can survive for some time without food they will eventually starve to death Nowak explained.
Tagging the bees revealed that about 20 percent of the foraging bees in a hive brought home more than half of the nectar
The food science major from Rapid city who received her bachelor's degree in December did her research as part of an honors program independent study project.
Some claim it's the world's healthiest food. The United states produces nearly 84 percent of the world's cultivated blueberries an estimated 564.4 million pounds of blueberries in 2012 according to the Agricultural marketing Resource Center.
He teaches a course on phytochemicals--the naturally-occurring chemical compounds in fruits and vegetable many
Blueberries are a great food very good for you. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by South dakota State university.
This is because there was a strong rise in the demand for pork during the Industrial revolution and pig farmers in the UK in particular saw that Asian pigs had wanted characteristics they to improve in their own pigs.
and snacks from homeopen a childâ##s lunch box and youâ##re likely to find that the lunches
and snacks inside fall short of federal guidelines. Those are the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and in the Department of public health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of medicine.
The findings are published online ahead of print in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Led by senior author Jeanne Goldberg Ph d. R. D. a professor at the Friedman School the study is among the first to examine what children bring to school for lunch and snack.
The researchers used digital photography to document the lunches and snacks of more than 600 Massachusetts third and fourth graders in 12 schools in six public school districts.
Goldberg and colleagues compared studentsâ##lunch and snack items to federal National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and Child and Adult Food Care Program (CAFCP) standards respectively.
They found that only 27%of the lunches met at least three of the five NSLP standards
and only 4%of snacks met at least two of the four CAFCP standards both of which emphasize fruits vegetables whole grains and low-or nonfat dairy.
Unfortunately these factors are not always in harmony with good nutritionâ#Goldberg said. â#oelunches were comprised more of packaged foods than anything elseâ#Goldberg said. â#oealmost a quarter of the lunches lacked
what would be considered an entrã e such as a sandwich or leftovers and were made instead up of a variety of packaged snack foods
and desserts. â#â#oethe few existing studies on packed lunches report that children who bring their lunch tend to consume fewer fruits
and vegetables less fiber and more total calories than those who participate in the National School Lunch Programâ#Goldberg said. â#oegiven that over 40%of U s. schoolchildren bring their lunches to school on a given day itâ##s
important to consider how nutrition experts and policymakers could help parents meet the challenges of cost convenience
and child preference and add nutrition to the equation. â#The researchers also found considerable room for improvement in school snacks.
or more sugar-sweetened beverages paired with a packaged snack food or dessert. â#oefew studies have evaluated snacks from home
and our data suggest that classroom-based snacking presents another opportunity for kids to eat
and nutrient-poor foods and beveragesâ#said corresponding author Kristie Hubbard Ph d. M p h. R. D. a research associate at the Friedman School. â#oealthough water was slightly more common than sugar-sweetened
beverages at lunchtime we saw many children with two or three sugary drinks in their lunchboxesâ#said Hubbard. â#oereplacing sugary drinks with water â#the drink recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics-keeps children hydrated without adding extra sugar to
their diet. â#The current study evaluated one dayâ##s worth of lunches and snacks in 12 schools.
This study points to the need to help parents find ways to build nutrition into the packed-lunch routine.
The researchers acknowledge that this is a challenge that will require creative approaches to packing lunch boxes with affordable easy-to-prepare
Mapping water trends for African maizetoday's food production relies heavily on irrigation but across Sub-saharan africa only 4 percent of cultivated land is irrigated compared with a global average of 18 percent.
#Real price of steak: Comparing environmental costs of livestock-based foodswe are told that eating beef is bad for the environment
but do we know its real cost? Are the other animal or animal-derived foods better or worse?
New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science conducted in collaboration with scientists in the US compared the environmental costs of various foods
and came up with some surprisingly clear results. The findings which appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) will hopefully not only inform individual dietary choices but those of governmental agencies that set agricultural and marketing policies.
based-food should one consume environmentally speaking. Though many studies have addressed parts of the issue none has done a thorough comparative study that gives a multi-perspective picture of the environmental costs of food derived from animals.
The team looked at the five main sources of protein in the American diet: dairy beef poultry pork and eggs.
Their idea was to calculate the environmental inputs-the costs-per nutritional unit: a calorie or gram of protein.
The main challenge the team faced was to devise accurate faithful input values. For example cattle grazing on arid land in the western half of the US use enormous amounts of land but relatively little irrigation water.
Cattle in feedlots on the other hand eat mostly corn which requires less land but much more irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer.
and thus approximate the true environmental cost for each food item. The inputs the researchers employed came from the US Department of agriculture databases among other resources.
When the numbers were in including those for the environmental costs of different kinds of feed (pasture roughage such as hay
and concentrates such as corn) the team developed equations that yielded values for the environmental cost-per calorie and then per unit of protein for each food.
The calculations showed that the biggest culprit by far is beef. That was no surprise say Milo and Shepon.
In total eating beef is more costly to the environment by an order of magnitude-about ten times on average-than other animal-derived foods including pork and poultry.
and consume 6 times as much nitrogen as eggs or poultry. Poultry pork eggs and dairy all came out fairly similar.
That was also surprising because dairy production is thought often to be relatively environmentally benign. But the research shows that the price of irrigating
In addition to helping individuals make better choices about their diet it should hopefully help inform agricultural policy.
and refined to be applied for example to understanding the relative cost of plant-based diets or those of other nations.
Models based on this study can help policy makers decide how to better ensure food security through sustainable practices.
Meat turns up the heat as livestock emit greenhouse gaseseating meat contributes to climate change due to greenhouse gasses emitted by livestock.
This is expected to increase further going forward as demand for meat dairy products and eggs is predicted by some scientists to double by 2050.
By contrast developed countries reached maximum livestock emissions in the 1970s and have been in decline since that time.
but this improvement is not keeping up with the increasing demand for meat said Caro.
Breaking it down by animal beef and dairy cattle comprised 74 percent of livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions 54 percent coming from beef cattle and 17 percent from dairy cattle.
Sheep comprised 9 percent buffalo 7 percent pigs 5 percent and goats 4 percent. That tasty hamburger is the real culprit Caldeira said.
It might be better for the environment if we all became vegetarians but a lot of improvement could come from eating pork or chicken instead of beef.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Carnegie Institution. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference e
#Mammals metabolize some pesticides to limit their biomagnificationthe concentrations of many historically used and now widely banned pesticides and other toxic chemicals--called legacy contaminants--can become magnified in an animal that eats contaminated food.
However a new study has found that Arctic mammals metabolize some currently used pesticides preventing such'biomagnification.'
Researchers who studied the vegetation-caribou-wolf food chain in the Bathurst region of Canada say that currently use pesticides enter the food chain
but the evidence shows that they are not biomagnified through the diets of their consumers.
Since these pesticides replaced some legacy contaminants that do biomagnify in similar food chains this is good news for the wildlife
and wildlife populations foul drinking water and make recreational areas unsafe. Researchers from North carolina State university are looking to rain gardens as one way to remediate the water quality concerns caused by urban stormwater.
finding ways to manage competitive vegetation under the trees and supplying important supplemental nutrition to trees.
The groundcover systems and nutrients were analyzed for their respective effects on soil organic matter carbon and nitrogen concentration and soil carbon and nitrogen sequestration.
However care should be taken in organic apple production to ensure nutrients are applied not over thereby protecting soil
Woodrats that never ate the plants were able to do so after receiving fecal transplants with microbes from creosote-eaters University of Utah biologists found.
bacteria in the gut--and not just liver enzymes--are crucial in allowing herbivores to feed on toxic plants says biologist Kevin Kohl a postdoctoral researcher
Livestock now can't graze on these cheap food sources. Could interspecies transplants of gut microbes help livestock expand their dining menu?
or goats to find out if that increases their tolerance to toxic foods. Juniper is expanding its range
Desert woodrats in the Mojave started eating creosote bushes while desert woodrats in the Great Basin kept eating toxic juniper to
At first the ancient juniper eaters in the Mojave likely were equipped poorly to eat invading creosote
Though slow evolutionary genetic changes in herbivores play an important role in adapting to new diets.
In the new study Dearing and colleagues performed three experiments using two kinds of woodrats â juniper eaters from the Great Basin desert
and creosote eaters from the Mojave desert. They were captured and kept in the lab on a diet of rabbit chow.
In the first experiment the scientists studied the relative abundances of gut-microbe genes in two groups of the creosote-eating Mojave woodrats.
One group was fed rabbit chow containing 1 percent of creosote resin for two days followed by rabbit chow with 2 percent of creosote resin for three days.
The control group was fed only rabbit chow. Gut microbes were removed from the foreguts of both woodrat groups.
The scientists found that a woodrat's diet determines the composition of its gut microbes.
Antibiotics kill about 90 percent of the gut microbes in animals severely impairing their ability to consume toxic foods.
Two groups of woodrats were pretreated with the antibiotic neomycin in their drinking water. One group was placed on a diet of rabbit chow and creosote resin.
With their gut microbes killed by the antibiotic they were unable to feed on creosote and lost 10 percent of their body weight within 13 days.
and showed that acquiring new microbes indeed helped woodrats adopt new diets. Woodrats naturally eat their own and other woodrats'feces.
So in the experiment juniper-eating Great Basin woodrats were fed rabbit chow mixed with feces either from other juniper eaters or from creosote-eating Mojave woodrats.
--and thus gut microbes--from creosote eaters juniper eaters persisted for 11 days on the creosote diet without losing much weight.
Yet 65 percent of the juniper eaters that ate feces of other juniper eaters didn't gain microbes that detoxify creosote
It's not that those woodrats rejected creosote-laced food. They ate as much as the woodrats that were fed feces with creosote-detoxifying microbes.
when woodrats didn't get transplants of creosote-detoxifying microbes their urine was more acidic suggesting their livers expended a lot of energy to degrade creosote toxins.
But in juniper eaters that consumed the feces of creosote eaters their newly acquired gut microbes likely detoxified most of the creosote taking the burden off of liver enzymes.
when it comes to purchasing food for their pets accordingly (Mintel Pet food 2013). In the July issue of Food technology Magazine published by the Institute of Food Technologists Contributing Editor A. Elizabeth Sloan writes about recent trends in gourmet pet food. 1. The premium sector accounted for 40 percent
of the 26 billion dollar U s. pet food market in 2013 (Packaged Facts 2014). 2. Sales of natural pet foods totaled $4. 1 billion in 2012 (Packaged
Facts 2014). 3. 79 percent of pet owners said the quality of their pets'food is as important as their own (Mintel 2013). 4. Top drivers of sales in pet foods included adding excitement
to the pets'diets via flavors gravies look-alike human recipes and meal specific foods such as appetizers and breakfast (IRI 2014). 5. Half of new pet foods touted have added vitamins antioxidants
protein DHA for puppies/kittens and no fillers artificial ingredients or byproducts (Packaged Facts 2014). 6. In 2013 more households had dogs than children with 39 percent of households having a dog
and 32 percent of households having children (Packaged Facts 2014). 7. The Paleo Diet has created a new sector of ancestral foods reflective of earlier diets of canines
Read the article in Food technology: http://www. ift. org/food technology/past-issues/2014/july/features/specialtymarkets. aspxstory Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Institute of Food Technologists (IFT. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#A 10-year endeavor: NASAS Aura and climate changenitrogen and oxygen make up nearly 99 percent of Earth's atmosphere.
-and paleoendemism (CANAPE) while he was in Australia in 2011 to take advantage of the country's comprehensive plant database.
He Bruce Baldwin and David Ackerly UC Berkeley professors of integrative biology earlier this year received a $391000 three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to apply CANAPE to the state's plant databases
The terminal buds of each twig are today's living species and the nearness of twigs represents how closely species are related.
It's like looking at the frosting instead of the whole cake. The new method starts with the branches connecting the species in a specific area so-called phylogenetic diversity
#Eating lean beef daily can help lower blood pressure, study suggestscontrary to conventional wisdom a growing body of evidence shows that eating lean beef can reduce risk factors for heart disease according to recent research by nutritional scientists.
This research adds to the significant evidence including work previously done in our lab that supports lean beef's role in a heart-healthy diet said Penny M. Kris-Etherton Distinguished Professor of Nutrition Penn State.
This study shows that nutrient-rich lean beef can be included as part of a heart-healthy diet that reduces blood pressure
which can help lower the risk for cardiovascular disease. The DASH eating plan--Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension--is recommended currently by the American Heart Association to lower blood pressure
and reduce risk of heart disease. People following the DASH diet are encouraged to eat fruits vegetables low-fat dairy and protein predominantly from plant sources.
The Beef Checkoff Program and the National institutes of health-supported Penn State General Clinical Research center funded this research.
Lean beef can be enjoyed as the predominant protein source in a DASH-like diet along with fruits vegetables and low-fat dairy to effectively help lower blood pressure in healthy individuals the researchers report in the Journal of Human Hypertension.
This DASH-like diet is called also the BOLD+diet--Beef in an Optimal Lean Diet plus additional protein.
Kris-Etherton and colleagues tested four diets to find the effects on vascular health. The diets tested included the Healthy American Diet
--which served as the control--the BOLD+diet the BOLD diet and the DASH diet.
The control diet consisted of 0. 7 ounces of lean beef per day while the DASH diet included 1. 0 ounce.
The BOLD diet had 4. 0 ounces and the BOLD+diet included 5. 4 ounces of lean beef.
The researchers tested the four different diets with 36 participants between the ages of 30 and 65.
All participants followed each diet at different times throughout the study period. Subjects were assigned randomly an order to follow each of the four diet plans for five weeks each with a break of one week in between each new plan.
Blood pressure was taken at the beginning and end of each diet period. The BOLD+diet was more effective at reducing blood pressure
when compared to the other diets tested. This evidence suggests that it is the total protein intake--not the type of protein--that is instrumental in reducing blood pressure as part of a DASH-like dietary pattern the researchers stated.
Working with Kris-Etherton were Michael A. Roussell nutrition consultant; Sheila G. West associate professor of biobehavioral health;
Jan S. Ulbrecht professor of biobehavioral health; John P. Vanden Heuvel professor of veterinary science all at Penn State;
Alison M. Hill lecturer in nutrition University of South australia; Trent L. Gaugler visiting assistant professor of statistics Carnegie mellon University;
and Peter J. Gillies professor and director of the Institute for Food Nutrition and Health at Rutgers The State university of New jersey.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Penn State. The original article was written by Victoria M. Indivero.
But according to a new report by researchers at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment focusing efforts to improve food systems on a few specific regions crops
and boosting our ability meet global food needs. For each it identifies specific leverage points where nongovernmental organizations foundations governments businesses
and citizens can target food security efforts for the greatest impact. The biggest opportunities cluster in six countries--China India U s. Brazil Indonesia and Pakistan--along with Europe.
and sustainability of global food production are: 1. Produce more food on existing land. Previous research has detected the presence of a dramatic agricultural yield gap--difference between potential and actual crop yield--in many parts of the world.
This study found that closing even 50 percent of the gap in regions with the widest gaps could provide enough calories to feed 850 million people.
which we use nutrients and water to grow crops. Agriculture is responsible for 20 to 35 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions largely in the form of carbon dioxide from tropical deforestation methane from livestock and rice growing and nitrous oxide from crop fertilization.
With respect to nutrient use the study found that worldwide 60 percent of nitrogen and nearly 50 percent of phosphorus applications exceed
China India and the U s.--and three crops rice wheat and corn--are the biggest sources of excess nutrient use worldwide so offer the greatest opportunity for improvement.
Boosting crop water use efficiency the researchers found could reduce water demand 8 to 15 percent without compromising food production. 3 Use crops more efficiently.
The third major category of opportunities characterized for boosting food production and environmental protection relate to making more crop calories available for human consumption by shifting crops from livestock to humans and reducing food waste.
The crop calories we currently feed to animals are sufficient to meet the calorie needs of 4 billion people.
and Western europe account for the bulk of this diet gap with corn the main crop being diverted to animal feed.
Although cultural preferences and politics limit the ability to change this picture the authors note that shifting crops from animal feed to human food could serve as a safety net
In addition some 30 to 50 percent of food is wasted worldwide. Particularly significant is the impact of animal products:
The loss of 1 kilogram of boneless beef has the same effect as wasting 24 kilograms of wheat due to inefficiencies in converting grain to meat.
The authors illustrate how food waste in the U s. China and India affect available calories noting that reducing waste in these three countries alone could yield food for more than 400 million people.
Sustainably feeding people today and in the future is one of humanity's grand challenges. Agriculture is the main source of water use greenhouse gas emissions
and habitat loss yet we need to grow more food West said. Fortunately the opportunities to have a global impact
Of course while calories are a key measure of improving food security nutrition access and cultural preferences must also be addressed.
But the need to boost food security is high. So let's do it. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Minnesota.
#Chromosome-based draft of the wheat genome completedseveral Kansas State university researchers were essential in helping scientists assemble a draft of a genetic blueprint of bread wheat also known as common wheat.
The food plant is grown on more than 531 million acres around the world and produces nearly 700 million tons of food each year.
The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium which also includes faculty at Kansas State university recently published a chromosome-based draft sequence of wheat's genetic code
A chromosome-based draft sequence of the hexaploid bread wheat genome is one of four papers about the wheat genome that appear in the journal Science.
The research is funded by the U s. Department of agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Wheat is a staple source of food for the majority of the world.
As the global population continues to rapidly increase we will need all the tools available to continue producing enough food for all people in light of a changing climate diminishing land
and water resources and changing diets and health expectations said Sonny Ramaswamy director of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and a former Kansas State university faculty member.
This work will give a boost to researchers looking to identify ways to increase wheat yields.
or high-fructose corn syrup when times are lean inside the hive. This practice has come under scrutiny
Some suspect that inadequate nutrition plays a role in honey bee declines. In a new study described in Scientific Reports researchers took a broad look at changes in gene activity in response to diet in the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera)
and found significant differences occur depending on what the bees eat. The researchers looked specifically at an energy storage tissue in bees called the fat body
which functions like the liver and fat tissues in humans and other vertebrates. We figured that the fat body might be a particularly revealing tissue to examine
The researchers focused on gene activity in response to feeding with honey high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose.
These differences remained even in an experimental hive that the researchers discovered was infected with deformed wing virus one of the many maladies that afflict honey bees around the world.
Some of the genes that were activated differently in the honey-eating bees have been linked to protein metabolism brain-signaling and immune defense.
With cinnamonseeking ways to prevent some of the most serious foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic bacteria two Washington state University scientists have found promise in an ancient but common cooking spice:
cinnamon. Recent findings published in Food Control journal online suggest Cinnamomum cassia oil can work effectively as a natural antibacterial agent in the food industry.
The study results add to a body of knowledge that will help improve food safety and reduce or eliminate cases of food poisoning and related deaths.
In the study the essential oil killed several strains of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (E coli) known to the U s. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as non-O157 STEC.
The study looked at the top six strains of non-O157 STEC said co-author Lina Sheng a graduate student in the School of Food Science.
The cinnamon cassia oil is effective in low concentrations she said--about 10 drops diluted in a liter of water killed the bacteria within 24 hours.
Demand for natural food additivesrising health concerns about chemical additives have strengthened demand for natural food additives said co-author Meijun Zhu an assistant professor in the School of Food Science.
Our focus is on exploring plant-derived natural food bioactive compounds as antimicrobials to control foodborne pathogens
in order to ensure safety of fresh produce she said. Sheng said about 110000 cases of illness are caused annually by non-O157 STEC.
The U s. Department of agriculture Food safety and Inspection Service has a zero tolerance policy for the CDC top six non-O157 STECS in raw ground beef
and trimmings indicating any raw non-intact beef products containing these pathogens will be considered adulterated. This has led Zhu
and Sheng to include the beef industry in the large-scale application of their findings on cinnamon.
and coatings for packaging both meat and fresh produce Sheng said. It can also be added into the washing step of meat fruits
or vegetables to eliminate microorganisms. Cassia cinnamon is produced primarily in Indonesia and has a stronger smell than the other common cinnamon variety Ceylon.
In addition to Cinnamomum cassia oil Sheng plans to take a look at another natural source to kill bacteria. She and her coworkers will study the potential of dandelions to inhibit bacteria related to bovine mastitis an infection in the mammary glands of dairy cows.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Washington state University. The original article was written by Rachel Webber.
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