however ensuring that there is an abundant supply of this legume is crucial both for its importance in cropping systems to ensure plant vitality and for food security.
However many agricultural lands are deficient in nitrogen leading farmers to rely on fertilizers to supply the needed nutrient for their crops.
which ranks as the 10th most cultivated food crop worldwide. Legumes such as the common bean and soybean however can form symbiotic relationships with nitrogen-fixing bacteria Understanding how such symbiotic relationships are formed
and sustained is a crucial to improving agricultural practices as increasing crop yields are desired both for fuel and food production.
and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture U s. Department of agriculture and the work was published online June 8 2014 in the journal Nature Genetics Unlocking the genetic make-up of the common bean is a tremendous achievement that will lead to future
advances in feeding the world's growing population through improved crop production said Sonny Ramaswamy director of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The practice ensures that the land can continue to produce high-yield crops without resorting to adding fertilizers or other artificial methods of providing nutrients to the soil.
There is a fledgling industrial effort underway in Florida to redirect the five million tons of annual citrus waste generated there from low-value cattle feed to produce ethanol for fuel.
Seville or sour orange commonly used in marmalade was found to be unrelated an interspecific hybrid. Since citrus varieties are reproduced asexually by vegetative propagation trees producing a specific type of fruit are typically genetically identical.
in addition to its role in calcium metabolism this critical nutrient reduces both the risk of current infections and the late-life development of such autoimmune diseases as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes.
It must seem strange that on the one hand we stress that human milk is the best source of nourishment for our babies
if we give nursing mothers enough Vitamin d to bring their blood levels up to the likely ancestral levels then they automatically put all of the Vitamin d their baby needs into their own milk thereby ensuring that the infant gets total nutrition without the need to resort to Vitamin d drops.
Those of us living in far northern latitudes survived mostly by depending upon diets that were very high in seafood
However an equivalent amount is lost through logging clearing of land for grazing and growing biofuel crops such as palm oil soya bean and sugar.
one to join with the egg cell to produce the embryo and one to join with a second cell to produce the nutrient-rich endosperm inside the seed.
and to further demystify the fascinating process--of how plants make the fertile sperm inside the pollen grains--that are essential for the vast majority of our food crop production.
and a long-term research site in New hampshire provided direct information about the state of the buds leaves and branches.
But scientists from Yale the University of Central Florida and SUNY Buffalo State found that fungi
which makes them so well-suited to a diet of low quality grass and other plants.
when foraging for food researchers based at the University of Bristol have discovered. This is the first time bees have been found to use this ability for something other than navigation.
However while other insects are known to use such sensitivity to identify appropriate habitats locate suitable sites to lay their eggs
and find food a non-navigation function for polarization vision has never been identified in bees--until now.
Professor Julian Partridge from Bristol's School of Biological sciences and the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western australia with his Bristol-based colleagues investigated
'in order to obtain a food reward. They found that freely foraging bumblebees soon learnt to differentiate between rewarding (sucrose solution providing) and aversive (quinine solution providing) artificial'flowers'with two different polarization patterns.
Professor Partridge said: Both pollinator and plant fitness is greatly dependent on the ability of pollinators to discriminate flowers accurately
but not so easy to pay for through food sales. Finding a way to produce enough food for humanity without losing these assets is perhaps the biggest challenge of the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately the latest CAP reform has not found a way to secure them. The authors offer six'immediate actions'that states should take.
and sassafras present in early stages and sequoia and ginkgo present in mature forests. We were looking at the direct result of a 66-million-year old forest fire preserved in stone says Emily Bamforth of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and the study's first author.
There's no one right way to stop deforestation but rather a smorgasbord of options. The successful reductions result from a variety of policy options including policies
and later companies agreed to moratoriums on buying soy or beef raised on deforested land.
While these deforestation programs and policies proved effective Brazil took additional action through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus pro-forest activities (REDD+)program in cooperation with Norway.
Countries can have their cake and eat it too said Boucher. The report shows that economic development is hindered not by reductions in deforestation.
For example the soy and beef industry in Brazil thrived despite moratoria preventing deforestation Vietnam expanded agricultural production
#Nutrition is key to oral, overall healthnutrition is vital to a person's oral health--and therefore to their overall health.
and intervention according to a new practice paper published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The practice paper Oral Health and Nutrition has been published on the Academy's website for Academy members
A practice paper is a critical analysis of current research literature that enables Academy members to translate nutrition science into the highest-quality advice and services.
and nutrition published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in May 2013.
It is the position of the Academy that nutrition is an integral component of oral health.
According to the practice paper nutrition assessment is essential for identifying dietary intake and nutritional factors that may affect a person's oral health.
Health-care professionals should address the importance of food choices to help ensure optimal oral health by explaining how oral health status can affect their food intake.
The multifaceted interactions between diet nutrition and oral health in practice education and research in both dietetics and dentistry merit collaborative efforts to ensure comprehensive care for patients and clients according to the practice paper's authors.
The practice paper encourages food and nutrition practitioners to educate their patients and clients on important aspects of nutritional health that lead to oral health:
â#¢Consuming fresh fruits vegetables and dairy foods such as milk cheese and yogurt without added sugar helps reduce an individual's risk of cavities. â#¢Consuming fewer foods
that are high in acid--such as fruit juices pickled foods sour candies citrus fruits and wine--may decrease an individual's risk of dental erosion
and cavities. â#¢Consuming fewer sugar-sweetened beverages such as soft drinks sports drinks energy drinks and fruit drinks may also decrease a person's risk of dental erosion
and cavities. â#¢Seeking guidance from registered dietitian nutritionists about healthy food choices and regular oral health care can help improve nutritional and oral health status. The paper is online at:
www. eatright. org/About/Content. aspx? id=8384story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length o
#Environmental one-two punch imperils Amazonian forestsone of the world's longest-running ecological studies has revealed that Amazonian forests are being altered by multiple environmental threats--creating even greater perils for the world's largest rainforest.
It's like a boxer getting hit by a flurry of punches says lead author William Laurance of James Cook University in Cairns Australia.
For the past 35 years a team of Brazilian and international researchers has studied how diverse communities of trees
and vines respond when the Amazonian rainforest is fragmented by cattle ranching. The fragmented forests they found change rapidly.
as long as the soils have enough nutrients. The investigators say a key implication is that many forests are being affected not only by land-use changes such as habitat fragmentation
The above story is provided based on materials by James Cook University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Co-author Andrew Krockenberger from James Cook University in Cairns in far northeast Australia says heat wave events can hit koala populations hard.
They're not a koala food tree but clearly they can be important when it comes to coping with the heat.
The above story is provided based on materials by James Cook University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and the bacteria were not able to survive inside the phloem of the plant where osmotic pressure from sugar is said highâ Fernando Pagliai a co-author of the study
Phloem is the living tissue that carries organic nutrients to all parts of the plant.
The disease starves the tree of nutrients damages its roots and the tree produces fruits that are green and misshapen unsuitable for sale as fresh fruit or for juice.
Most infected trees die within a few years. The disease has affected already millions of citrus trees in North america
Current methods to control the spread of citrus greening include removing and destroying infected trees.
The low mobilization assumed much stricter environmental constraints on forest biomass removal such as prohibition of stump removal no fertilizer use to replace nutrients lost
Scientists believe the spread of tree bumblebees could have both positive and negative impacts on native bees.
Bees are essential to our food chain and the populations of our native bumblebees have declined in recent decades.
if the bumblebees compete for food or nesting sites. Further research should focus on how our native bees are affected
and remember floral traits associated with food. Disruption to this important function has profound implications for honeybee colony survival
because bees that cannot learn will not be able to find food and return to their hives.
By pollinating some key crop species honeybees make a vital contribution to food security. The decline of these insects raises significant concerns about our ability to feed a growing population.
and Durham Universities and the Food and Environment Research Agency was funded by the UK's innovation agency the Technology Strategy Board.
#Parents should stock up on healthy food for growing teensrefrigerators and pantries across the country are bracing for the seasonal assault from teenagers who are now done with school
and will eat most of their meals at home for the summer months. Even if they're not home to supervise meals parents can
and should still take the initiative to make sure their hungry teens have healthy fare to eat said Kristen Kizer R. D. L. D. a clinical dietician with Houston Methodist Wellness Services.
and stage the growth and physical maturation occurring during adolescence makes good nutrition all the more critical she said.
and Vitamin d intake an area of focus especially since teens tend to replace milk with sugar beverages like soda or sports drinks.
In addition starting and maintaining good eating habits is critical at this age as it's estimated that 90 percent of overweight and obese teens will remain overweight or obese as adults.
In addition to keeping meals and snacks healthy Kizer recommends keeping meals simple too--requiring little prep time
Most teens aren't thinking about chronic disease 30 years down the road reminding them that the foods they choose now have an impact on their appearance athletic performance
so helping them select foods that will make them physically feel well can also improve their mood and emotional health.
All this simple guacamole requires is jar of salsa and some avocados. You mix them together
and you have an instant dip for veggies Kizer says. She recommends baby carrots because they're already washed
The Vitamin c in the salsa will keep the guacamole from turning brown and the healthy monounsaturated fat from the avocado will keep your hungry teens satisfied she said.
Whole wheat rotini and veggies and pasta sauce: Pasta is versatile and can easily be made in large quantities.
Take a bag of frozen mixed veggies together with a jar of pasta sauce and heat up in a sauce pot Kizer says.
To make it easy for your teenager to heat up Kristen suggests putting everything in the refrigerator in a covered glass container.
All your kids have to do is grab the complete meal and heat it up in the microwave and with all the sauce and vegetables they won't even know they're getting a healthy dose of fiber magnesium manganese
and selenium she says. Greek yogurt with fruit: I prefer to add frozen fruit to Greek yogurt over fresh
because it makes it a cool refreshing treat and as the fruit melts the juice spreads throughout the yogurt making it sweeter Kizer says.
She suggests buying 32-ounce containers of yogurt and adding your teenager's favorite fruit.
Keeping a box of lower-sugar cereal on hand can be helpful when teens are around.
I suggest something with no more than 6 grams of sugar like Kashi'sâ Heart-to-Heart
Original Cheeriosâ can also be jazzed up with some vanilla extract and cinnamon or PB2Â a natural dried peanut butter powder that can make plain Cheerios taste a lot more like their peanut butter variety without all the added sugar.
Indulgent deviations: Rather than full-fat fried potato chips keeping baked chips on hand as a healthier indulgent can be a good compromise between you and your teen.
Sunchipsâ Kellogg'sâ popped chips or Kashi'sâ black bean chips are also tasty yet less indulgent snacking options Kizer says.
For desserts Skinnycowâ ice cream sandwiches are hard to beat for 150 calories and 3 grams of fiber.
For those who prefer a fruit-based dessert try a 100 percent frozen fruit bar. For teens who consider pizza an entire food group finding a whole-wheat thin crust emphasizing veggies rather than high-fat meat like sausage
and pepperoni can reduce the damage associated with full-fat deep-dish varieties. Story Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Houston Methodist. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length t
and salicylic acid in various forms such as cleansers gels and creams--the prescription world has changed really in the past 10 years or so.
but research has shown that acne is caused not by dirty skin or by eating chocolate pizza or greasy foods.
but grocery-store produce costs lesswhen participants in a local Women Infants and Children (WIC) program received vouchers for fruits and vegetables at area farmers markets they ate a greater variety of vegetables
But a survey comparing prices at grocery stores and farmers markets showed that better produce prices could be found in local supermarkets says a new University of Illinois study.
The biggest effect the vouchers had was related to the quality of participants'diets. Those who used the farmers market vouchers ate a greater variety of vegetables
or vegetables as snacks (57.3%)over those who did shop at the farmers markets (46.7%)said Karen Chapman-Novakofski a U of I professor of nutrition.
Meanwhile prices were collected every two weeks at area grocery stores and farmers markets. The median intake for both vegetables and fruit among study participants was two servings a day
and maintaining a positive attitude about eating them. The farmers market vouchers may serve as a gateway to exposure to more fruits
and vegetables and clients would use other sources of food dollars to maintain fruit and vegetable intake Chapman-Novakofski noted.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend increased vegetable consumption to reduce the risk of heart disease certain cancers obesity type 2 diabetes high blood pressure osteoporosis and kidney stones.
and they provide a venue for cooking demonstrations and nutrition education but economically disadvantaged moms need to be able to purchase produce at the best prices she noted.
It's important to note that not all farmers markets are more expensive than supermarkets.
We'd also like to know how much of the food purchased at farmers markets is eaten. And we're interested in how consumers view the quality of farmers market produce and the kinds of fruits and vegetables they most often purchase.
The porous carbon powder he settled on has massive surface area and turns the neat trick of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into solid polymer chains that nestle in the pores.
and sipping a cup of boiling hot soup it will turn the temperature down and open a window.
and how willing are the forest owners to convert land used for pasture agriculture and other purposes to forest and convert forest land to land for cultivation of energy crops?
They recommend applying repellents containing 20-50%DEET to the skin when in countries with diseases spread by insects such as malaria and dengue fever.
State university of New york-Buffalo; the Institute of Microbiology Academy of Sciences of the Czech republic; the U s. National Center for Atmospheric Research;
Potato late blight continues to be a major threat to global food security and at least $6 billion a year is spent to combat it mostly due to the cost of fungicides and substantial yield losses.
Along with other staple foods such as corn rice and wheat the potato forms a substantial portion of the modern human diet.
A cheap and plentiful crop that can grow in many locations the ability to increase food production with the potato eventually aided a European population boom in the 1800s.
Rice blast is a relentless killer a force to be reckoned with especially as rice is a staple in the daily diet of more than half the world's population--that's over 3 billion people Bais notes.
As global population continues to grow biocontrol bacteria may be an important key for farmers to overcome crop losses due to plant disease and to produce more food from the same acre of land.
when farmers will treat plants with a magic cocktail of microbes naturally found in soil to help boost their immunity and growth.
At stake the study emphasizes are the futures of food production our climate and water security.
The approach would also improve soil's ability to retain nutrients and water making it beneficial for additional reasons.
The transects ran in the direction of the fire's spread from untreated to treated areas
The researchers led by Professor Marion Hetherington in the Institute of Psychological sciences also found that even fussy eaters are able to eat a bit more of a new vegetable each time they are offered it.
For parents who wish to encourage healthy eating in their children our research offers some valuable guidance.
sweetened with added sugar; or added energy where vegetable oil was mixed into the puree. There was also little difference in the amounts eaten over time between those who were fed basic puree and those who ate the sweetened puree
which suggests that making vegetables sweeter does not make a significant difference to the amount children eat.
and start to reject foods--even those they previously liked. Among the children four distinct groups emerged.
and they were called plate-clearers. Those who ate less than 10g even by the fifth helping were classified as non-eaters amounting to 16%of the cohort
and the remainder were classified as others (23) %since their pattern of intake varied over time.
Non-eaters who tended to be older preschool children were the most fussy the research found.
NHS guidelines are to start weaning children onto solid foods at six months. The research has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
#Eating prunes can help weight loss, study showsresearch by the University of Liverpool has found that eating prunes as part of a weight control diet can improve weight loss.
Consumption of dried fruit is recommended not readily during weight loss despite evidence it enhances feelings of fullness.
if low fiber consumers could tolerate eating substantial numbers of prunes in their diet and if eating prunes had a beneficial effect on appetite.
To assess the effects of prunes on weight and appetite participants in the study were divided into two groups--those who ate prunes every day (140g a day for women
The study also found that the prune eaters experienced greater weight loss during the last four weeks of the study.
Maintaining a healthy diet is challenging. Along with fresh fruit and vegetables dried fruit can provide a useful and convenient addition to the diet especially as controlling appetite during dieting can be tough.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Liverpool. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
In developing countries production of milk and meat have grown from 1970 to today at an average yearly rates of 5. 1 and 3. 6 percent respectively
and spread of zoonotic infectious agents originating in wild animals. Finally it is estimated today that one in three human in the world--1. 46 billion--is obese or overweight a problem to
But livestock are also a source of livelihoods and food security for almost a billion people. As well as the actual economic benefits that livestock already confers on the economies
and rural development in poor countries and potential improvements in food security and nutrition some 766 million poor farmers living with an income<$ 2 U s. per day could directly benefit from improvements in this sector.
Moreover livestock grazing systems are used also to produce meat and milk in areas unsuitable for crop production.
Today nearly 800 million people are affected by food insecurity and the number of children affected by stunting due to malnutrition is estimated at 165 million.
There has never been need a greater to ensure equitable efficient and sustainable food production; the livestock sector plays an essential role in achieving this objective.
This study is the result of a partnership between the Laboratory of Biological Control and Spatial Ecology (ULB LUBIES) the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI Nairobi Kenya) the Food and Agricultural organization of the United nations
Looking forward to mid-centuryas population grows society needs more--more energy more food more paper more housing more of nearly everything.
The 1990s Trend baseline scenario assumes land-use trends will continue as they did during the 1990s resulting in less cropland pasture and rangeland and more forests and urbanization.
Food and carbon sequestrations are fine and may even rise under the various scenarios but you may need strong incentives to limit declines in the provision of other ecosystem services.
and Evolution reports the first known case where four species all at different levels in the food chain use a single odor to communicate with
and so a good place to look for food sexual partners and egg-laying sites. The jumping plant louse Diaphorina citri hones in on the odor methyl salicylate that is released by damaged young leaves of citrus trees
whose sap is the only food of the young lice. But other species have evolved the capacity to take advantage of its attraction to methyl salicylate.
One of these is the bacterium Canditatus Liberibacter asiaticus which infects citrus trees hijacks its odor production
they will not find enough food there as the bacterium has lowered drastically the nutritional quality of infected leaves.
which lays its eggs on young jumping plant lice so that the wasp larvae can feed on them.
or three species. Here we show for the first time that the same signal connects four different species each at a different level in the food chain.
and demand and another that assesses food security based on caloric consumption--to predict how global food security from 2006 to 2050 could be affected by changes in population income bioenergy agricultural productivity and climate.
Income is also set to eclipse population as the dominant driver of food security a historical first said Baldos.
Growth in income will allow people to increase the amount of food they consume and upgrade their diets by adding more meat and processed foods to staples such as crops and starches.
The shift toward a diet higher in calories and richer in protein could lift many in hunger-stricken regions such as Sub-saharan africa South Asia China and Mongolia above the malnutrition line.
Globally the volume of food consumed per capita could increase by about 31 percent. In developing regions with strong growth in income and population consumption could rise by about 56 to 75 percent.
But these projections depend heavily on corresponding increases in agricultural productivity Hertel said. Productivity is a measure of crop yields relative to the inputs used in producing them such as land labor and fertilizers.
Increased global productivity improved the availability of food over the last 50 years but this trend must continue between now
and 2050 to buttress food security. There is a clear link between productivity growth in agriculture and the number of malnourished people Hertel said.
Boosting productivity tends to lower food prices and declines in the cost of food in turn can allow for better nutrition.
Income growth alone will not be enough to solve the malnutrition problem. Historically agricultural productivity has been driven by investments in agricultural research and development.
The researchers said improvements in food security depend on increasing research spending especially over the next two decades.
The models show that climate change is a less influential driver of global food security than income population
and productivity--but it could still pose a significant risk to the nutrition levels of people living in the world's poorest regions Baldos said.
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