and commitment have led to significant victories not only in conservation but also in the related areas of food and economic security health care and education.
and food supplies were at risk. Through that group Maathai paid women to grow seedlings
and plant trees with the combined goals of preventing erosion storing rainwater and providing food and firewood to local people.
But time has validated Ahimbisibwe's pioneering spirit. She is pleased with her decision to participate for two reasons.
Facts, Customs & Traditions Italian culture is steeped in the arts architecture music and food. Home of the Roman empire and a major center of the Renaissance culture on the Italian peninsula has flourished for centuries.
Italian cuisine has influenced food culture around the world and is viewed as a form of art by many.
Wine cheese and pasta are important part of Italian meals. Pasta comes in a wide range of shapes widths
and lengths including penne spaghetti linguine fusilli and lasagna. In the North of Italy fish potatoes rice sausages pork and different types of cheeses are the most common ingredients.
Pasta dishes with tomatoes are popular as are many kinds of stuffed pasta polenta and risotto.
In the South dishes are dominated by tomatoes#either served fresh or cooked into sauce and also includes capers peppers olives and olive oil garlic artichokes eggplant and ricotta cheese.
Italians are known for their family-centric culture and there are a number of small and mid-sized businesses.
Even many of the larger companies such as Fiat and Benetton are controlled still primarily by single families.
Meetings are typically less formal than in countries such as Germany and Russia and the familial structure can give way to a bit of chaos and animated exchanges.
Pasquetta on the Monday after Easter typically involves family picnics to mark the beginning of springtime.
Raccoons are pretty bad they can eat eagle eggs and chicks but they're nothing like great horned owls who will swoop into a nest decapitate the chicks
when we set goals of checking on 100 nests before breaking for lunch. The census surveys have gotten pretty intense
This year we found birds raising chicks that came from eggs laid in November a time
#Why Chocolate Really is the Secret to Happiness (Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Conversation.
but when it comes to chocolate it seems you can have both. Chocolate really does grow on trees
and its seeds or beans are the source of the 4m metric tonnes of chocolate produced each year and much of it from countries like the Ivory coast and Indonesia.
Just as today they roasted the fermented seeds from cocoa pods grinding the roast to a powder
which they used to make a chocolate beverage a cold foaming drink that was very different to the substance we consume today.
and the Aztecs also added chili-pepper to give the phrase hot chocolate#a whole new meaning.
Two thousand years ago the Mayan people of what is now known as Guatemala even came up with the original chocolate teapot#a ceramic vessel used to pour the foaming drink
and archaeologists have found evidence that chocolate drinks were served up at the celebrations after the interment of sacrificial victims (though
I m not sure that the condemned would have been made any happier with a bar of chocolate).
The last Aztec emperor Montezuma II consumed a lot of this drink every day and it was hinted that this enhanced his virility.
and spices like cinnamon and vanilla another import from The americas transformed it into the much sweeter drink we have now.
Chocolate drinking became the thing to do in fashionable society. Less than 200 years ago the invention of the chocolate press by Casparus van Houten senior made it possible to separate roasted cocoa beans into cocoa butter
and a solid that could be made into cocoa powder. This powder could be recombined with sugar
and cocoa butter to produce an eating chocolate and in 1847 the Bristol Quaker firm of Fry s closely followed by Cadbury s in Birmingham made the first chocolate bar.
The swiss came up with milk chocolate bars in the 1870s and to this day Switzerland and Britain are two of the top nations for chocolate consumption.
Chocolate Easter eggs were invented in the 1870s and we haven t looked back since. The taste of chocolate comes from a mixture of chemicals many resulting from the roasting process in
which sugars and amino acids combine forming members of a family of molecules called pyrazines which contribute the nutty roasted and chocolately sensations.
But what about the feel-good#side of chocolate? For a start there is the world s most widely consumed psychoactive drug:
1 3 7-trimethylxanthine by name. You may have heard of it: we call it caffeine. It works by counteracting the natural neurotransmitter adenosine resulting in an increase in heart-rate and muscle contraction.
There is also a significant presence of theobromine in chocolate a similar stimulant which also happens to be the molecule that makes chocolate poisonous to dogs.
Then there is serotonin a natural neurotransmitter which controls many functions in the brain including mood and behaviour.
The body makes it from the natural amino acid tryptophan and chocolate contains both serotonin and tryptophan.
Another chocolate molecule believed to be important was discovered less than 20 years ago: anandamide. This binds to receptors in the brain known as cannabinoid receptors.
These receptors were originally found to be sensitive to the most important psychoactive molecule in cannabis Î-THC.
Likewise anandamide and similar molecules found in chocolate are thought also to affect mood. Phenylethylamine another family of chemicals is found in chocolate in very small amounts.
It is a naturally occurring substance with a structure that is closely related to synthetic amphetamines which of course are also stimulants.
The bad news however is that eating chocolate is probably not the best way of getting our hands on phenylethylamine as enzymes in our liver degrade it before it can reach the brain.
There are yet more other molecules in chocolate especially in dark chocolate like flavonoids which some scientists think may help improve cardiovascular health
#Getting the chocolate to crystallise to give this form is a very skillful process the product of very careful chocolate engineering.
There is still much yet to know about chocolate and some are now even sequencing the genome of cultivated cacao.
But the continuing intricacies in chocolate and cacao that we are discovering through science can only add to the very simple human pleasure of breaking off a piece and popping it in our mouths.
#Food safety Returns To Nature (ISNS) Outbreaks of foodborne diseases carried by bacteria can be a nuisance at best and deadly at worst.
Researchers are looking into novel ways to keep food safe. One way to destroy these pathogens is with more pathogens.
Recently a team of researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette Indiana developed a cocktail of different phages that was extremely effective against Escherichia coli o157:
and 2138 hospitalizations between 2000 and 2008 in the U s. The researchers mixed a cocktail of three phages
and added it to ground beef or sprayed it on spinach. They found that the combination eliminated over 99%of E coli O157:
They obtained similar results in refrigerated and room temperature beef. These results published online earlier this year in the Journal of Animal Science are exciting but hardly new.
and can be applied directly to poultry meat.##oeit s not widely used today. It s gaining acceptance
#oeit s a microorganism the concept of putting a virus on foods is initially hard to swallow
and irradiation two mechanisms commonly used to kill bacteria in ready-to-eat food products. Phages are much more specific usually one phage targets only one species of bacteria.
and potentially eliminate the need to treat food products with phages. Naturally there is also a push to find a use for phages in humans.
which is why researchers use a cocktail. The probability that one type of bacteria can become resistant to multiple phages at once is extremely low according to both Gill and Ebner.
Why is Ractopamine in U s. Pork?(Op-Ed) Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United states (HSUS.
If you care about the drugs that make it into the United states'food supply or only about
what happens to the animals that supply us with meat you should care about ractopamine.
But that hasn't stopped the U s. pork industry from feeding it to an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of American pigs to rapidly boost growth rates.
If you buy pork at your local supermarket chances are that it came from a ractopamine-treated pig.
A few days ago Mcclatchy published a detailed piece on how the American pork industry led by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) now is demanding that European authorities allow pork from pigs fed ractopamine
The European Food safety Authority investigated ractopamine in 2009 concluding there were not enough data to show that it is safe for human consumption at any level.
The NPPC's attitude appears to be that that the pork industry's profits should trump any concerns about food safety or animal welfare from regulators scientists or consumers.
The U s. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ractopamine for use on pigs after just one human health study an evaluation of six young healthy men one of whom dropped out
The pork industry vehemently fights all of our efforts to require the euthanasia of downer pigs perhaps
The dispute over ractopamine speaks to a broader illness in the nation's pork industry.
The pork industry insists on using a dangerous drug and then complains when other nations and American consumers don't want their pork.
They have some sort of expectation that they know best behaving like parents insisting that their unknowing children eat whatever is on their plate.
This reminds me of the pork industry's stubborn refusal to stop using gestation crates coffin-sized crates that confine pregnant sows so tightly that they can't even turn around.
Polls show that consumers in every state oppose their continued use while almost 60 major food corporations have committed to phasing out the crates based on their cruelty.
But still the pork industry and especially the NPPC continues to cling to the crates which they are now laughably trying to rebrand as maternity pens.
This mentality is summed best up by an NPPC spokesman who told a reporter in 2012:
if she wanted to turn around#Gestation Crates Have No Place in U s. Food Production (Op-Ed) Thankfully this line of thinking now faces a major challenge from within the pork industry with major producers splitting from the NPPC on gestation crates
Smithfield foods for example has committed to phasing out all of its gestation crates and to reducing its use of ractopamine.
Now it's time for the pork industry's laggards to step up and for the obstructionists at the NPPC to get out of the way.
Not Popcorn and Crumbled Bread (Op-Ed) Deborah Robbins Millman is the director of Cape Wildlife Center one of New england's largest wildlife rehabilitation centers
Angel wing is a deformity commonly found in ducks geese swans and other waterfowl. There has been little scientific study done on the condition yet most wildlife
and waterfowl experts agree the overwhelming cause of angel wing is an unhealthily high protein and/or carbohydrate-based diets.
or both wings to unnaturally twist outward rather than lie flat against a bird's body.
Birds with angel wing are stripped of their ability to fly and therefore their main method of defense.
and in public areas where people feed them unhealthy food. Because birds grow much more rapidly than humans each day's nutrition has a direct effect on development.
Even a few days of improper eating can cause irreparable damage. Research such as oft-referenced studies on Canada geese and nutrition for young birds suggest feeding waterfowl an unhealthy diet can accelerate growth causing the wing to develop too quickly for proper bone support.
Nutritious waterfowl feed or duck pellets are inexpensive easy to carry and can be purchased at most feed stores.
Seedless grapes cut in half; shredded kale; Swiss chard or romaine lettuce; and grains including wheat barley and oats are all healthy food sources that will appeal to most waterfowl.
Make sure anything you feed is bite-sized to avoid choking hazards. Wild Animals Suffer on'Junk Food'Diets Cape Wildlife Center our wildlife rehabilitation center based in Barnstable Mass
. and operated by The Fund for Animals (an affiliate of The Humane Society of the United states) treats about 2000 animals per year including a significant number of geese swans
and ducks suffering from angel wing. The highest incidence of admission is late fall or winter when affected birds have grown enough for the condition to be fully and painfully apparent.
If the patients treated are very young the condition can sometimes be minimized by splinting and repositioning the affected wing while feeding the birds a proper diet for optimal growth.
Even then a full recovery is guaranteed not. For rehabilitators it can be emotionally taxing to see birds denied the chance for a full and productive life
Angel wing can be reduced drastically by not feeding birds people food including white bread popcorn or crackers.
and after they fledge have a lot of mobility and exposure to a varied diet.)The risk of birds developing this disease doesn't mean the enjoyable
and offer the birds the right food to sustain their health. Feeding wild birds a proper diet preserves a treasured family tradition
while teaching children the importance of making choices that strengthen rather than undercut the human-animal bond.
and sensing plants is not at all outlandish Danny Chamovitz director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel aviv University and author of
Animals developed thought because of their searching strategy for finding food he told Forbes. Alien tree-thinkers would have to incorporate movement perhaps with some type of root system that can push itself out of the ground take three steps forward
but also oodles of other health-related data including users'blood alcohol content body fat percentage respiratory rate and intake of sodium magnesium calcium fiber iodine
chromium and many other nutrients. But the developers neglected to serve the segment of the population that menstruates the Verge reported.
and sexual activity over the course of the month so a woman can know if her period is regular
and managing forests to make way for food-bearing plants as early as 11000 years ago soon after the end of the last ice age a new study suggests.
in order to plant food-bearing trees. Pollen samples from around 6500 years ago contain abundant charcoal indicating the occurrence of fire Hunt said.
This indicates that the people who inhabited the land intentionally cleared it of forest vegetation and planted sources of food in its place.
Hunt also pointed to evidence that the New guinea sago palm a plant that yields the starchy staple food sago first appeared over 10000 years ago along Borneo's coastline.
They struggled to use the group feeder. It was like the annoying kid in the school yard who always followed you around#Weary said.
what many children remember is missing their supper. The earthquake struck at 5: 36 p m. Alaska Standard time on Good friday.
When the first shaking hit many parents were in the kitchen fixing dinner. For more than 4 minutes the earth buckled
Few people returned home to their meals that night. In Anchorage the ground cracked open and giant fissures swallowed children whole killing them in front of their siblings.
But when it shakes the soil jiggles like gelatin and behaves like a liquid. Two-thirds of Alaska's population lives on top of these mixes.
and alcohol were reserved originally for ritual ceremonies and weren't used merely to satisfy hedonistic motives a new study suggests.
But written records aren't the only indication of early drug and alcohol use. It is thought generally that mind-altering substances
So Guerra-Doce decided to sort through the scarce and scattered information in the scientific literature in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the history and context of ancient drug and alcohol use.
macrofossil remains of psychoactive plants residues from fermented alcoholic drinks psychoactive alkaloids (chemical compounds) on artifacts and skeletal remains and artistic depictions of psychoactive plants and drinking scenes.
7 Potent Medicinal Plants Alcoholic residues suggest many prehistoric Eurasians drank fruit wines mead beer (from barley
and wheat) and fermented drinks made from dairy products. The discovery of alcoholic fermentation appears to date back to about 7000 B c. in China.
By 5000 B c. people in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran drank wine instilled with pine resin (for its preservative or medicinal properties.
And at a site in southeastern Armenia dating to 4000 B c. scientists unearthed a fully equipped winery#they think the wine was made for mortuary practices considering there were 20 burial graves which contained drinking cups next to the winemaking facility.
Importantly though some pottery fragments containing residues of beer and wine come from settlements most actually come from burial sites.
Many tombs have provided traces of alcoholic drinks and drugs Guerra-Doce said. I think these substances were used to aid in communication with the spirit world.
Some artistic representations also hint at ceremonial drug and alcohol use in prehistory. One of the most revealing items may be a 30-inch-tall (76 centimeters) terracotta figurineknown as the Poppy Goddess.
The figurine found in an almost 3000-year-old cult chamber in Crete depicts a bare-breasted woman with upraised arms and a head bearing three movable hairpins shaped like poppy capsules.
Alcohol also seems to have been mainly for the upper class. One of the most impressive examples comes from the so-called Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave in Germany a Celtic burial chamber for a 40-year-old man that dates to around 530 B c. In the princely tomb researchers found an enormous
I think that prior to a large-scale production alcoholic drinks were reserved for special events and they played a similar role as drug plants Guerra-Doce said.
After large-scale production became possible alcohol likely became available to many people (not just elites)
#Lose weight and Boost Nutrition with This Common Grain How often do you eat rice? It could be time to add some more of this grain to your diet.
People who eat white or brown rice daily are more likely to have adequate levels of potassium magnesium and other nutrients according to a recent study in the journal Food and Nutrition Sciences.
They also tend to consume less saturated fat and fewer added sugars the researchers said.
It's not that rice is some miracle food though. It has definite nutritional benefits
but adding rice to an unhealthy diet will not magically make you healthy. The study found that people who are in the habit of eating rice often are more likely to also eat diets that are consistent with the recommendations in the U s. Dietary Guidelines. 6 Foods That Are Good For Your Brain A previous found similar results:
Rice eaters also consumed more veggies fiber iron and potassium and less saturated fat according to researchers who published their results in 2009 in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
How much do you know about rice? Here are some facts to consider: Brown vs. white rice:
Brown rice is considered the healthier choice of the two because the germ and bran components of the grain remain intact
which also means that it retains the nutrients from these components. White rice has been stripped of the germ
and bran but it is enriched often with B vitamins. So there are some benefits to white rice but brown rice contains more fiber minerals and phytonutrients.
Rice and nutrition: A serving of rice contains no fat cholesterol or sugars according to nutrition information from the U s. Department of agriculture.
Rice and weight loss: In one study people who consumed a byproduct of brown rice fermentation lost more weight on average than those who consumed a mixed grain product.
The results suggest that brown rice may be a better choice for your plate than bread according to the findings published in 2011 in the journal Nutrition Research.
Healthy Bites appears weekly on Live Science. Deborah Herlax Enos is certified a nutritionist and a health coach
#Why Eating Fruits and Veggies Won't Make You Thin Eating more fruits and vegetables is a generally a good idea
The investigators found that eating more fruit and vegetables without also changing the amount of calories from other food sources did not cause people to either lose
or gain weight. Across the board all studies we reviewed showed a near-zero effect on weight loss study author Kathryn Kaiser an instructor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public health said in a statement Fruits
and we encourage people to include them in their diets study author David Allison associate dean for science in the UAB School of Public health told Live Science.
but you have to cut out more calories from other foods to lose weight he said. 6 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits
and fiber in one's diet Kaiser said. Laura Jeffers a registered dietician at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved with the study said This is a good summary of research that has been done.
and vegetables to their diets without reducing their calorie intake she said. If patients realized that this is not likely to work they would be more successful in reaching their weight-loss goals she said.
and they also may want to consider decreasing their overall food portions she said. The study was published Wednesday (June 25) in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Allen has received money from Kraft Foods and the Kellogg Co.;Kaiser has received money from Coca-cola Iberia.
Another co-author Richard D. Mattes and the University of Alabama at Birmingham itself have received funding from food companies.
Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. Follow Live Science@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Originally published on Live Science e
#Broccoli Brew Eases Air pollution Effect, But Is This Detox? Scientists have concocted a brew made with broccoli sprouts that may help protect against the toxic effects of air pollution.
The news stories about the study with words such as detox tea body flush and pollution solution might lead you to believe there's something after all to those juicing
Nor does the study justify the use of so-called detoxifying juices herbs and colon-and liver-cleansing schemes to rid the body of harmful chemicals.
In this new study a team led by Dr. Thomas Kensler who holds joint positions at Johns hopkins university in Baltimore
but not All the people in the new study who drank a concentrated tea made with broccoli spouts excreted 61 percent more benzene
and 23 percent more acrolein a lung irritant compared with a group who drank a placebo beverage.
or herbs consumed periodically can flush the body of all of these nasties regardless of their chemical composition or place of storage.
Detox schemes fall into three categories liver cleansing colon cleansing and whole body detoxification and each one is flawed based on science.
The liver the primary organ to detoxify chemicals never needs to be cleaned because it doesn't work like the lint filter it's commonly portrayed to be.
The liver detoxifies chemicals by changing their composition into a less-reactive state. Chemicals that the liver can't detoxify simply pass through it unchanged at the risk of harming other organs.
The colon never needs to be cleaned either. The theory of autointoxication in which a dirty colon creates toxins that are reabsorbed into the body was disproved nearly 100 years ago
and is based on the idea that raw foods juices and antioxidants can somehow scrub away toxins that are specified never.
and that these pose uncertain dangers it's not true that an herb or juice can locate all these diverse chemical families within the body
and safely and magically escort them out of the body. Doctors know of no biological mechanism to enable this.
but rather by preventing toxins from taking hold through a healthy diet. Evolution isn't smart
The food can serve as a frugal means to reduce exposure to toxins Kensler said akin to a face mask until systematic pollution controls are applied.
Wanjek is the author of Food At work and Bad Medicine. His column Bad Medicine appears regularly on Live Science c
They can glide up to 160 feet (48 m) making it look like they can Fly on average squirrels eat about one pound of food per week.
Squirrels are omnivores which means they like to eat plants and meat. Squirrels mainly eat fungi seeds nuts
and fruits but they will also munch on eggs small insects caterpillars small animals and even young snakes.
To prepare for cold months squirrels will bury their food. In the winter months they have a store of food they can eat
when supplies are scarce. A female carries her young for a gestation period of 33 to 46 weeks
and gives birth to two to eight offspring at one time. Babies are called kits or kittens and are born blind.
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