#8 Steps To Sustainable Meat And Milkglobally deforestation driven by clearing land for cattle alone accounts for close to one-fifth of global greenhouse gas pollution.
The amount of poop urine and farts produced by hundreds or thousands of cows in CAFOS (concentrated animal feedlot operations) often leads to water pollution
and air pollution the latter largely methane a powerful heat-trapping gas that contributes to destabilizing the climate.
Livestock account for 14.5%of human-induced greenhouse-gas emissions exceeding that from transportation notes the report.
To add to the environmental insults meat animals are fed about 1 billion metric tons a year of the same cereal grains that humans consume increasing the pressure on supplies of food and fresh water.
But globally more and more people are turning to farmed animals for dietary protein. Meat production is on track to more than double by 2050.
In response an international research team suggests eight ways to make ruminant agriculture aising cows goats sheep buffalo camels llamas reindeer and yaks for meat and dairy nvironmentally sustainable.
Publlished this week in the journal Nature the strategies favor diverse approaches tailored to local conditions rather than a universal approach that ignores local cultures geographies economies and environmental realities.
and around one-third of the world's grain supply worldwide the most important step may be feeding animals less human food.
Half the world's food comes from farms that raise both they point out. Animals pull ploughs and carts and their manure fertilizes crops
and other ruminants should get as much food as possible from sources humans cannot consume. These include grazing fodders like hay
and straw and silage (a feed created from the entire cereal plant not just the grain).
It's how ruminants are supposed to eat judging from the fact that they naturally have forestomachs that can break down fibrous plant matter into nutritious calories
In other words and very simply less human food into animal feed. It can be done: 95 percent of milk in the European union comes from grass-fed livestock the article notes
while in New zealand milk cows get just 10 percent of their diet from grains and 90 percent from grazing.
and like Alice tailing the white rabbit through Wonderland he discovered an upside-down world almost cartoonish in its horrors.
Primitive grinders reduced those bits to lentil-size fragments which children then sifted through and sorted by color.
and when you burn them you get a whole cocktail of cancer-causing stuff. Puckett estimated that just more than half of the material processed in Guiyu actually got recycled judging from the tons of plastic leaded glass and burned circuit boards discarded near waterways and in open fields.
He took water samples and found evidence of heavy metals 190 times higher than the World health organization s guidelines for safe drinking water.
and two corrugated rollers grab the cars pancake them and suck them into a 5000-horsepower hammer mill where 16 free-swinging 400-pound steel hammers spin 500 rpms around a rotor unleashing hell.
and food processing among others. We ve also invented a number of processes ourselves. He explains that the source material in the intake bay will be fed into shredders and reduced to the size of quarters.
and extruded into spaghetti-like strands. Those are sliced into mustard seed ize pellets the product MBA sells to its customers.
That s all Biddle will tell me. He won t explain how the separation processes work.
He s attending a dinner hosted by the Climate Change Forum ith guest ministers of trade
and environment from several countries nd he s having lunch with Britain s head of green economy in the department for economic growth.
Steel when it burns it s like spaghetti says B. J. Yeh the technical services director for APA he Engineered Wood Association.
Called the Timber Tower Research Project it reimagines Chicago s 42-story Dewitt Chestnut apartment tower
P. S. You cannot tell how I admire your spirit in the manner in which you have taken all that was done about publishing all our papers.
and another 1000 in a cold country and fed on different food and confined in different-size aviary
I cannot even grapple with the idea even with races of dogs cattle pigeons or fowls;
I am collecting all cases of bud-variations in contradistinction to seed-variations (do you like this term for what some gardeners call'sports'?;
Our poor boy had the rare case of second rash and sore throat...and as if this was not enough a most serious attack of erysipelas with typhoid symptoms.
I think has passed the crisis. He has lived on port wine every three-quarters of an hour day and night.
or only with bitter sneers and coupled with Buffon and the Vestiges. Well it has been an amusement to
#Chickens Wear Prosthetic Dinosaur Tails, For Sciencethe humble chicken is distantly related to the T. rex.
How could we make chickens walk like they're little dinosaurs? A new study provides the equally important answer!
but there being few dinosaurs available stuck a prosthetic tail on the creatures'fowl analog raising them from birth to adapt for walking in a more dinosaur-like way.
As you can see from this video the chicken was made successfully to walk like a doofus.
The space-grown edibles include peas dwarf wheat and Japanese leafy greens. They look great
and not at all weird one of the scientists working on the project Margarita Levinskikh of the Institute of Biological Problems assured The Voice of Russia.
and cosmonauts eating the fresh food they grow and not having problems crop scientist Bruce Bugbee wrote to Popular Science in an email.
and has worked on studies of food grown in space. Space crop programs aim to learn
if people would be able to grow some of their own food for longer stays in space.
Space agencies hope the fresh vegetables will feed not only astronauts'bodies but their spirits as well. Caring for a plant every day provides vital psychological relief giving astronauts a small remembrance of Earth NASA project scientist Howard Levine told Modern Farmer in a 2013 feature about space veggies.
which astronauts are able to grow several generations of crops before the modules'nutrients are used up.
These are the same types of tests we routinely conduct on the food grown On earth Bugbee says.
#Rise Of The Insect Dronesas they sat nursing their beers Guiler and Vaneck watched as a fly appeared to slam into a window.
The next morning we had champagne and all that but it was more of a relief.
After observing the fly at the bar the two engineers searched for someone with experience replicating insect flight.
#Finding What Puts The Heat In Hot Peppersto engineer a better pepper you'd have to go out into the field ctual fields around the world nd look at different traits measurements and yield.
but it also helps reveal a few interesting secrets hiding within the pepper's genes. Because peppers are not so different from their cousins the potato
and tomato the genome could also elucidate more about the evolution and adaptation of other delicious species. One of the study's co-authors Allen Van Deynze has been working with peppers for about 20 years.
He's also a director of research at the University of California Davis Seed Biotechnology Center. Van Deynze studies hot peppers in part because he enjoys eating them.
%It adds the spice to many food dishes but it also puts the pain in defense repellants has antifungal properties
So if you ike the author here hought that peppers held the spice in their seeds you would be wrong.
The real hottest part of a pepper is in the white tissue that holds the seeds (known as the placenta.
The study suggests that the pungency from peppers was evolved through new genes by unequal duplication of existing genes.
while the test could be used to distinguish between cacao varities it wouldn't necessarily result in better-tasting chocolate as that may be influenced more strongly by production techniques.
what things will taste like from a restaurant menu's descriptions. But try doing the same with descriptions of perfumes in catalogs
and raw meat have. In their experiments Radboud and Burenhul asked both native Jahai speakers and native English speakers to name smells on scratch-'n'-sniff cards and colors on chips.
How about this English speaker's description of the smell of cinnamon? I don't know how to say that I have tasted that gum like Big Red
or something tastes like what do I want to say? I can't get the word.
Jesus it's like that gum smell like something like Big Red. Can I say that?
There are some U s. Food and Drug Administration-approved surgical glues in use today but they're either not strong enough to use on the heart
#How Honey Bees Point Their Way To Foodhoney bees can give each other directions using polarized light as a landmark to find potential food.
which the honey bees perform to inform others about where to find food is actually based on the patterns of polarized light.
when the honey bee returns to perform the dance on the vertical face of the honeycomb the axis of the dance indicates in which direction relative to the light the food source lies.
Ilagan learned that widely publicized studies purporting to show ill health effects from eating genetically modified foods have been discounted.
but not necessarily one that has to come with GMO foods. At the same time Ilagan grappled with passionate well-meaning constituents who use incorrect
which have important ecosystem functions and food webs of their own. Mangrove forests grow in calm shallow coastal waters throughout the tropics.
#Field trial with lignin modified poplars shows potential for bio-based economythe results of a field trial with genetically modified poplar trees in Zwijnaarde Belgium shows that the wood of lignin modified poplar trees can be converted into sugars in a more efficient way.
These sugars can serve as the starting material for producing bio-based products like bioplastics and bio-ethanol.
and worker bees--both females--emerged from the different quality and quantity of food. But what about the males he asked.
Under the magnifying lens researchers could see that eggs that gave rise to drones were penetrated not by sperm.
#Genetic discovery points to bigger yields in tomato, other flowering food plantsevery gardener knows the look of a ripe tomato.
Tomatoes that will be canned for sauces and juice are harvested from plants that stop growing earlier than classic tomato varieties
and are therefore more like bushes. While the architecture of these compact bushy plants allows mechanical harvesters to reap the crop the early end of growth means that each plant produces fewer fruits than their home garden cousins.
and co-author Ziana Ahmed state that in the United states 80 per cent of the antibiotics in the country are consumed in agriculture and aquaculture for the purpose of increasing food production.
It's not just the food we eat he says. Bacteria is spread in the environment;
It's about increasing the efficiency of food so you can reduce the amount of grain you feed the cattle says Hollis. It's about giving antibiotics to baby chicks
While banning the use of antibiotics in food production is challenging establishing a user fee makes good sense according to Hollis. Such a practice would deter the low-value use of antibiotics with higher costs encouraging farmers to improve their animal management methods
Is the Canadian government going to take any action to control the use of antibiotics for food production purposes?
#Personalized biochemical analysis of breast milk to help enhance nutrition for the smallest infantsphysicians in the Neonatal Intensive care unit in the Maxine Dunitz Children's Health Center launched a pilot study in
whether premature infants are receiving the correct amounts of nutrients they need to thrive. The study could lead to a new innovation in personalized medicine:
Individually optimized nutrition for the smallest patients. Currently the only way to determine if premature newborns are malnourished is to monitor their growth rate.
If infants'growth rates are lagging behind the norm it is likely they are not receiving the nourishment they need said Charles F. Simmons Jr.
and then adding food supplements accordingly is extremely important to the smallest babies said Simmons the Ruth and Harry Roman Chair in Neonatology in honor of Larry Baum.
Now we are moving toward having the ability to personalize each mother's milk to give her baby the precise nutrition the baby needs.
and performs a spectroscopic analysis of the liquid at wave lengths unique for each nutrient. When the analysis is complete the machine gives a breakdown of the milk's composition of proteins fat and carbohydrates.
As plants spread to higher latitudes and elevations they evolved in ways that helped them deal with cold conditions.
These findings raise concerns about efforts to increase food production to meet growing global populations.
Future projections that would ensure global food security are typically based on a constant increase in yield a trend that this research now suggests may not be possible.
Estimates of future global food production and its ability to meet the dietary needs of a population expected to grow from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050 have been based largely on projections of historical trends.
The proposed expansion--roughly 2000 additional square miles--would encompass the largest upwelling site in North america better protecting the nutrient-rich waters that support everything from reefs and seabird colonies to endangered whales.
#Greater dietary fiber intake associated with lower risk of heart diseasein recent years a decline in both cardiovascular disease (CVD)
or fiber-rich foods and CVD risk factors. Researchers at the University of Leeds reviewed literature published since 1990 in healthy populations concerning dietary fiber intake and CVD risk.
They add that an additional 7g of fiber can be achieved through one portion of whole grains (found in bread cereal rice pasta) plus a portion of beans/lentils or two to four servings of fruit and vegetables.
The researchers conclude that diets high in fiber specifically from cereal or vegetable sources...are associated significantly with lower risk of CHD
and coronary heart disease events will in fact accrue with higher dietary fiber intakes. He says that teaching patients to eat whole grains is still challenging
The recommendation to consume diets with adequate amounts of dietary fiber may turn out to be the most important nutrition recommendation of them all he concludes.
and the United states reached their conclusions on the basis of a synthesis of scientific knowledge on greenhouse gases climate change and food and environmental issues.
They drew from a variety of sources including the Food and Agricultural organization the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and recent peer-reviewed publications.#
Among the largest human-related sources of methane are ruminant animals (cattle sheep goats and buffalo) and fossil fuel extraction and combustion.
and sheep production are 19 to 48 times higher (on the basis of pounds of food produced) than they are from producing protein-rich plant foods such as beans grains or soy products.
In addition to reducing direct methane emissions from ruminants cutting ruminant numbers would deliver a significant reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of feed crops for livestock they added.#
#Among agricultural approaches to climate change reducing demand for meat from ruminants offers greater greenhouse gas reduction potential than do other steps such as increasing livestock feeding efficiency or crop yields per acre.
Cutting the number of ruminant livestock could have additional benefits for food security human health and environmental conservation involving water quality wildlife habitat
and easily infect farm animals such as cows sheep pigs and chickens. Humans can be infected by eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables.
Infection rates vary around the world: In the United states it's about 10 to 15 percent
and food to meet their ravenous appetite for housing and furniture as well as food. But Liu notes that that's just the beginning.
or encourage returning farmland to forest are credited with some of the success. Importing food such as soybean
and meat and forest products like timber or wood furniture also contributes. But that seems to have caused forests to decline in the countries selling the forest goods to China as well as a spray of other impacts.
Importing food to China can allow more land to be returned to forest in China yet
when food demand from China becomes higher farmers in other countries such as Brazil have more incentive to mow forests down
and its partners in food and forest goods but who produce the machinery to harvest
the origin of flowering plants including all major food crop species. On 20 december 2013 a paper by the Amborella Genome Sequencing Project that includes a full description of the analyses performed by the project as well as implications for flowering plant research will be published in the journal Science.
An effort to decipher the Amborella genome--led by scientists at Penn State university the University at Buffalo the University of Florida the University of Georgia
at Buffalo. Scientists who sequenced the Amborella genome say that it provides conclusive evidence that the ancestor of all flowering plants including Amborella evolved following a genome doubling event that occurred about 200 million years ago.
Comparative analyses of the Amborella genome are already providing scientists with a new perspective on the genetic origins of important traits in all flowering plants--including all major food crop species. Because of Amborella's pivotal phylogenetic position
and pasture management practises will greatly help to control against production losses due to gastrointestinal parasites.
Ducks geese and swans are waterfowl an order known to scientists as Anseriformes. Hens pheasants partridges and turkeys are game-birds (Galliformes.
Both orders are famous not just for their flesh but also for their striking and elaborate plumages
if a fast-food restaurant reduces the calories in a children's meal by 104 calories mainly by decreasing the portion size of French fries?
Would children compensate by choosing a more calorie dense entr e or beverage? Researchers at Cornell University Dr. Brian Wansink and Dr. Andrew Hanks analyzed transaction data from 30 representative Mcdonald's restaurants to answer that question.
Prior to 2012 the Happy Meal was served with one of three entr e options (chicken nuggets cheeseburger hamburger) a side item (apples or small size French fry
) and a beverage (fountain beverage white milk chocolate milk apple juice. By April 2012 all restaurants in this chain served a smaller size kid fry and a packet of apples with each CMB.
Wansink and Hanks found that this change in default side offerings resulted 98 of the 104-calorie decrease in the CMB.
With such a large decrease in calories would children compensate by choosing a more calorie dense entr e or beverage?
Wansink and Hanks found that 99%of children ordered the same entr e and orders of chicken nuggets (the lowest calorie entr e) remained flat at nearly 62%of all orders.
Yet nearly 11%fewer children took caloric soda as a beverage and 22%more chose white
or chocolate milk--a more satiating beverage. This increase was partially due to small changes in advertising for milk.
Interestingly the chocolate milk served in 2012 was of the fat-free variety compared to the 1%milk variety served previously.
Overall the substitutions in beverage purchases resulted in 6 fewer calories served with the average CMB.
Small changes in the automatic--or default--foods offered or promoted in children's meals can reduce calorie intake
and improve the overall nutrition from selected foods as long as there is still an indulgence. Importantly balancing a meal with smaller portions of favored foods might avoid reactance and overeating.
Just as managers have done this in restaurants parents can do this at home. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cornell Food & Brand Lab. Note:
Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference c
#Corn pest decline may save farmers moneypopulations of European corn borer (ECB) a major corn crop pest have declined significantly in the eastern United states according to Penn State researchers.
The decline suggests that the use of genetically modified ECB-resistant corn hybrids--an expensive yet effective solution that has been adopted widely by farmers--may now be unnecessary in some areas.
ECB which was introduced to North america from Europe in the 1900s used to be the most important pest of corn in the United states said John Tooker assistant professor of entomology.
Delivering polyphenols with anticancer activitypolyphenols found in tea manifest anticancer effects but their use is limited by poor bioavailability and disagreeable taste.
when epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) the major extractable polyphenol in green tea and the most biologically active when diluted in skim milk or other milk complexes remains bioactive and continues to reduce colon cancer cell proliferation in culture
and opens the door to a new generation of dairy products providing additional benefits to human health say authors Sanaz Haratifar and Milena Corredig of the Department of Food Science and Department of Human Health
The majority of extractable polyphenols in tea are flavan-3-ols commonly referred to as catechins.
EGCG is the major catechin found in tea. Tea polyphenols have been shown to inhibit tumor formation reduce cancer cell proliferation increase normal cell death (apoptosis)
and/or suppress the formation of new blood vessels feeding tumors (angiogenesis). For several reasons tea catechins have poor bioavailability
and the goal of the current study was to encapsulate EGCG in casein (milk protein) molecular aggregates known as micelles to maintain
In order to exert their biological health benefits in vivo polyphenols must be available and still active even when present in a food matrix comments Dr. Haratifar.
#Growing body of research supports efficacy of SNAP nutrition educationthe Food and Nutrition Service of the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) released a study on December 5 providing clear evidence that well-designed
nutrition education programs can lead to healthier food choices by participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program (SNAP.
This study builds on a body of research published in the Journal of Nutrition Education
and Behavior showing the positive impact education has on healthy behaviors says Joanne Ikeda president of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB).
Their work helps at-risk families make better food choices and reduce the devastating impacts of conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
The study SNAP Education and Evaluation Study (Wave II) evaluated the impact of several nutrition education programs on fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income elementary school children and seniors.
The study found that children participating in certain nutrition education programs increased their daily fruit
The results of this study reiterate the critical role of nutrition education and promotion in improving the healthfulness of SNAP purchases said Under Secretary Kevin Concannon in the USDA press release.
and eat more healthy foods. But Ikeda cautions Recent cuts to SNAP and SNAP-Ed have not only reduced money available for food for at-risk families
but have impacted also the funding for vital education programs. SNEB has joined other organizations in calling for Congress to protect SNAP
http://www. fns. usda. gov/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-education-and-evaluation-study-wave-iistory Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
The price of sugar has increased at a rate considerably above inflation over the last 30 years.
Bacteria are used widely in sugar cane production as well as with other crops where they help to break down organic matter in the soil to make vital nutrients available to the growing plants
and sequencing the genome to confirm that they had the genetic ability to turn nitrogen into plant food.
Hamlet's preference for dressing entirely in black is meant not to be a fashion statement
In the same spirit we leave out sherry and biscuits for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer.
#Emerald ash borer may have met its matchwoodpeckers find emerald ash borers a handy food source and may slow the spread of this noxious pest even ultimately controlling it suggest researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Their findings are published online in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. We found we have a native predator that is able to detect
and respond to this new rich food resource said Charles Flower UIC postdoctoral research associate in biology and first author of the study.
or perhaps more efficient than other methods to slow the spread of this pest said Flower.
One of the ways a predator can respond to a new abundant food source according to Flower is a functional response:
When emerald ash borer larvae emerge from eggs laid on the tree they burrow in
and eat their way through the phloem layer of the tree the vascular system that delivers water and nutrients from root to branch.
and thus the food source available every bug and its fate were accounted for. This was looking at woodpecker foraging at a fine tree-by-tree scale said Flower.
Their results proved that woodpeckers were indeed choosing to prey on emerald ash borers--eating 85 percent of the emerald ash borer in an infested tree.
Another type of predator response to a new food source is a numerical response: the numbers of the predator in this case woodpeckers and other bark foraging birds increase either because they were moving into the area
and around the Great lakes using a citizen scientist data base--the Project Feeder Watch --which showed that the numbers of three woodpecker species
Slowing its course may give researchers time to learn more about how it can be controlled.
The research suggests that the woodpeckers are likely slowing the spread of emerald ash borer.
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