But the adulteration reduces the overall quality of the chocolate so cacao growers are keen to improve the quality of cacao beans exported from Ecuador.
and the chocolate made from them. Although the genome sequence of the Criollo cacao variety was reported two years ago it's genetically quite distinct
and cacao beans harvested from the plants'pods are used to produce chocolate as well as in the confectionary and cosmetic industries.
Brands with flavours such as vanilla or chocolate attract children and put them at increased risk of experimenting with cigarettes
and eat food that is regurgitated by the parents we expected the level of bacterial sharing to be a lot higher.
In 2007 Americans consumed approximately 17.4 million metric tons of fluid milk--milk consumed as a drink
or with cereal rather than milk used in dairy products such as cheese yogurt and ice cream. The dairy industry has set a goal of 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Based in part on growing consumer awareness of sustainability issues in our food supply chain the U s. dairy industry is working to further improve the environmental performance of its production processes
and stages of milk production from the fertilizer used to grow the animal's feed to waste disposal of packaging after consumer use.
The researchers identified many areas where the industry can reduce impact within feed and milk production processing and distribution retail and the supply chain.
They focused on farms where processes for feed production handling of enteric methane and manure management varied greatly
#Ultrasound#Making Waves for Enhancing Biofuel Productionall chefs know that you have to break some eggs to make an omelet
and his colleagues Melissa Montalbo-Lomboy and Priyanka Chand has shown that pretreating a wide variety of feedstocks (including switch grass corn stover
and allow the freed sugars to be dissolved for further processing into biofuel. Grewell and his colleagues found that pretreating
instead with ultrasound makes lignin removal so efficient that sugar dissolution occurs in minutes rather than the hours needed with traditional mixing systems.
and therefore resulted in fermentation yields comparable to jet cooking. The potential cost savings for this method says Grewell are very encouraging.
when they are learning how to find food and bring it home. Activity of this gene called Egr quickly increases in a region of the brain known as the mushroom bodies
#Improving crop per drop could boost global food security and water sustainabilityimprovements in crop water productivity--the amount of food produced per unit of water consumed--have the potential to improve both food security
and water sustainability in many parts of the world according to a study published online in Environmental Research Letters May 29 by scientists with the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment (Ione) and the Institute of Crop science and Resource
and crop water productivity by climatic zone for 16 staple food crops: wheat maize rice barley rye millet sorghum soybean sunflower potato cassava sugarcane sugar beet oil palm rapeseed (canola) and groundnut (peanut.
Together these crops constitute 56 percent of global crop production by tonnage 65 percent of crop water consumption and 68 percent of all cropland by area.
The wide range of variation in crop water productivity in places that have similar climates means that there are lots of opportunities for improving the trade-off between food and water.
The researchers calculated that in drier regions bringing up the very lowest performers to just the 20th percentile could increase annual production on rain-fed cropland enough to provide food for an estimated 110 million people
and food insecurity says Brauman. For example if low crop water productivity in precipitation-limited regions were raised to the 20th percentile of water productivity specific to particular crops
and climates total rain-fed food production in Africa could be increased by more than 10 percent without exploiting additional cropland.
#Nordic diet lowers cholesterol, study findsa healthy Nordic diet lowers cholesterol levels and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease a pan-Nordic study where Lund University participated has found.
The amount of harmful fat particles in the blood also declined says Lieselotte Cloetens a biomedical nutrition researcher at Lund University.
The rest of the group ate butter instead of rapeseed oil less berries and vegetables and had no rules on red meat or white bread intake.
The researchers now want to focus on the diet's ability to maintain weight loss in a new study according to Lieselotte Cloetens who points out that the problem with most diets is maintaining the results.
experts concludewhen assessing information presented by the tobacco industry the US regulator the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and regulatory bodies in other countries should be aware that they are dealing with companies with a long history of intentionally misleading the public.
#Changing gut bacteria through diet affects brain functionucla researchers now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans.
or microbiota in the gut can affect the brain carries significant implications for future research that could point the way toward dietary
and products of the gut flora--in particular that people with high-vegetable fiber-based diets have a different composition of their microbiota
whether repeated courses of antibiotics can affect the brain as some have speculated. Antibiotics are used extensively in neonatal intensive care units
The study was funded by Danone Research. Mayer has served on the company's scientific advisory board. Three of the study authors (Denis Guyonnet Sophie Legrain-Raspaud and Beatrice Trotin) are employed by Danone Research
and were involved in the planning and execution of the study (providing the products) but had no role in the analysis or interpretation of the results.
and Tony Heinz the D. M. Rickey Professor of Physics at Columbia University. Ajayan is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice.
when including distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Some producers believe that feeding pigs saturated fats will undo the fat-softening effects of DDGS.
Firmer fat means longer-lasting pork. But researchers from the University of Illinois found that including saturated fats in DDGS diets makes no difference in fat quality.
The researchers formulated six corn-soybean meal diets to test the effects of saturated fat additives on carcass fat quality in pigs.
Five of these diets contained DDGS. According to the researchers pork produced from pigs fed DDGS have reduced shelf life and increased susceptibility to oxidative damage.
Oxidative damage affects texture color juiciness and the overall flavor of pork products. Distillers dried grains contain unsaturated fatty acids
and those fatty acids are deposited into the fat of the animal said Hans-Henrik Stein study co-author
and Department of Animal Science professor at the University of Illinois. From a health standpoint that's a good thing but it can be a problem
when producing pork products like bacon. According to Stein high levels of unsaturated fats make pork belly fat too soft to slice for bacon.
To counteract this problem producers have included saturated fats such as corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol in diets containing DDGS
in order to make the fat firmer. For this study corn germ beef tallow palm kernel oil and glycerol were added each to a diet containing DDGS.
The researchers compared the performance of pigs fed each of these diets to the performance of pigs fed a diet containing DDGS with no saturated fats added
and a control diet containing corn-soybean meal but no DDGS. Firmness of fat was tested by measuring the distance of belly flop.
This was done by draping the belly of the carcasses over a metal rod with the skin facing down.
Ten centimeters below the rod distance was measured between the two sides. The larger the distance was the firmer the fat.
The researchers found that pigs fed the control diet containing no DDGS had greater belly flop distances than the pigs fed the other diets.
There was no difference among the pigs fed the five diets containing DDGS. This led researchers to conclude that adding saturated fats to diets containing DDGS has no effect on the fat quality of pigs.
Stein suggested that producers feeding high levels of DDGS reduce the amount fed in the last 3 to 4 weeks before harvest to avoid the softening of fat.
Early spring is typically tree season with common tree allergens including oak maple walnut pecan and hickory.
Common weed allergens include ragweed lamb's quarter pigweed English plantain and mugwort. This year the pollen count is proving to be high in Nashville according to Valet.
but only 30 crops account for 95%of human food energy the bulk of which (60%)comes down to rice wheat maize millet and sorghum.
The decline in the diversity of crops and animals is occurring in tandem with the need to sharply increase world food production
and as a changing environment makes it more important than ever to have a large genetic pool to enable organisms to withstand
The researchers also described their diet on the basis of their droppings and characterised their roosts the structure of the vegetation on their hunting grounds and the presence of potential preys.
when supplemental food started and at what age it was weaned said Katie Hinde professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard university and an affiliate scientist at the UC Davis Primate Center.
Although there is some variation among human cultures the accelerated transition to foods other than mother's milk is thought to have emerged in our ancestral history due in part to more cooperative infant care
and access to a more nutritious diet Hinde said. Shorter lactation periods could mean shorter gaps between pregnancies and a higher rate of reproduction.
David Bishop Dominic Hare and Philip Doble University of Technology Sydney Australia. The work was funded by the U s. Environmental protection agency U s. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences U s. National Science Foundation Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Australian
Other varieties of JIC tomatoes high in a variety of compounds such as those found in red wine are being used by Essex company Biodeb to develop a range of skincare products.
the optical measurements were carried out in the Tony Heinz lab in physics. The structural modeling and electronic structure calculations were performed by the David Reichman lab in chemistry.
Also slithering it way onto this year's top 10 is a snail-eating false coral snake as well as flowering bushes from a disappearing forest in Madagascar a green lacewing that was discovered through social media
Although the forests where the monkeys live are remote the species is hunted for bush meat
Panamasnail-eating snake: A beautiful new species of snail-eating snake has been discovered in the highland rainforests of western Panama.
The snake is nocturnal and hunts soft-bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs in addition to snails and slugs.
This harmless snake defends itself by mimicking the alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes.
and shared his photo on Flickr. Shaun Winterton an entomologist with the California Department of Food
Living species of hangingflies can be found as the name suggests hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food.
They are a lineage of scorpionflies characterized by their skinny bodies two pairs of narrow wings and long threadlike legs.
About a third of our food production including most of our fruit and vegetables depends on animal pollination
Kentaro Shimizu and their Malaysian Taiwanese and Japanese colleagues collected multiple buds from a single Shorea beccariana tree shortly before the start of flowering.
considering how our ancestors selected food to eat. The fruits and vegetables we buy from the grocery today were passed down from generation to generation as favorable and nutritious for the human body.
On the flip side outcomes were not favorable for our ancestors who ate poisonous mushrooms for example he said.
#Whodunnit of Irish potato famine solvedan international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered The irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century.
and how human activity impacts the spread of plant disease. Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today The irish population has recovered still not to pre-famine levels.
We have discovered finally the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc says Hernã¡
and the US reconstructed the spread of the potato blight pathogen from dried plants. Although these were 170 to 120 years old they were found to have many intact pieces of DNA.
The researchers examined the historical spread of the funguslike oomycete Phytophthora infestans known as The irish potato famine pathogen.
The HERB-1 strain of Phytophthora infestans likely emerged in the early 1800s and continued its global conquest throughout the 19th century.
Only in the twentieth century after new potato varieties were introduced was replaced HERB-1 by another Phytophthora infestans strain US-1. The scientists found several connections with historic events.
The social upheaval during that time may have led to a spread of the pathogen from its center of origin in Toluca Valley Mexico.
Discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emergedarchaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China
We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet.
This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.
ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts lotus root and the fern root the addition of starch from palms was unexpected totally and very exciting.
Many communities in the tropics today particularly in Borneo and Indonesia but also in eastern India still rely on flour derived from palms.
Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today plant suckers nearby the village thus maintaining continuous supply.
but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple. Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see
When sunlight is absorbed by pigment molecules in a chloroplast an energized electron is generated that moves from molecule to molecule through a transport chain until ultimately it drives the conversion of carbon dioxide into carbohydrate sugars.
Only a third of college students consumes a diet that is consistent with national recommendations said Meg Small research associate in the Prevention Research center for the Promotion of Human Development.
In order to examine the protective effects of parent-college student communication on student eating and physical activity behaviors the researchers recruited 746 first-year students at a large university in the U s. to complete a baseline survey plus 14 daily surveys.
It is likely that communication with parents has both direct and indirect effects on college students'eating
Parents may directly remind students to eat a variety of healthy foods and engage in physical activity.
Males seem to readily procure food for the chicks regardless whether they are their own or not.
A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plantsthe Solanaceae also called the potato
Tomatoes potatoes aubergines peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world.
because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar. A syrphid hovers over alyssum.
and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper.
A review of the wild relatives of some favorite food plantsthe Solanaceae also called the potato
Tomatoes potatoes aubergines peppers and wolfberries are all representatives of the family present on many tables across the world.
because they can find food in the form of pollen and nectar. A syrphid hovers over alyssum.
and roots said Betsy Beers an entomologist based at WSU's Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee and Gontijo's mentor and co-author on the paper.
Among oilseed crops sunflowers are one of the most important sources of edible vegetable oil for human consumption worldwide.
Sunflower and other oilseed crops are the source of the vast majority of vegetable oil used for cooking and food processing.
In this era of increasing global food crisis and changing climatic regimes such ability is highly desirable.
Samples analyzed included drinking water feces contaminated soil and cloacal and tracheal swabs. Of these samples 20 were positive for the presence of H7n9 influenza viruses.
Of these 20 positive samples 10 were isolated from chickens 3 from pigeons and 7 were from environmental samples.
what a foodstuff tastes like. In fact the tongue can recognize basic tastes like sweet sour salty bitter and umami (savory.
But to get that rounded taste experience we also use our sense of smell --and strawberries provide a good example of this.
This compound gives the ripe fruit its characteristic caramel-like aroma. HDMF is also found in pineapples and tomatoes.
In the course of their research the scientists discovered that the catalytic reaction involved a hitherto unknown mechanism.
Unlike coffee or vanilla the biochemical processes that produce the strawberry aroma are very complex.
Thus biosynthetic processes might be used soon to prepare the true flavor of strawberry from fructose for example to make drinks
or food such as yoghurt taste even more like the real thing. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Technische Universitaet Muenchen.
#Poultry drug increases levels of toxic arsenic in chicken meatchickens likely raised with arsenic-based drugs result in chicken meat that has higher levels of inorganic arsenic a known carcinogen according to a new study
versus other forms) in retail chicken meat and the first to compare those concentrations according to
The findings provide evidence that arsenical use in chickens poses public health risks and indicate that the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) the agency responsible for regulating animal drugs should ban arsenicals experts say.
and known as roxarsone was readily available to poultry companies that wished to add it to their Feed in addition to inorganic arsenic the researchers were able to identify residual roxarsone in the meat they studied;
in the meat where roxarsone was detected levels of inorganic arsenic were four times higher than the levels in USDA Organic chicken (in
and improve the pigmentation of the meat. The drugs are approved also to treat and prevent parasites in poultry.
In 2010 industry representatives estimated that 88 percent of the roughly nine billion chickens raised for human consumption in the U s. received roxarsone.
Currently in the U s. there is no federal law prohibiting the sale or use of arsenic-based drugs in poultry feed.
In January Maryland became the first U s. state to ban the use of most arsenicals in chicken feed.
According to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data at least 75 percent of Americans regularly eat chicken.
The FDA has established not safety standards for inorganic arsenic in foods although the agency did for a brief time in 2011 suggest that concentrations should be well below 1 microgram per kilogram of meat.
The levels of inorganic arsenic discovered in the meat where roxarsone was found were two and three times greater than that level.
Another significant finding of the study is that when roxarsone was present in raw meat cooking decreased the levels of roxarsone
and increased the levels of inorganic arsenic. The authors of the study are Keeve E. Nachman Phd Patrick A. Baron MHS Georg Raber Phd Kevin A. Francesconi Phd Ana Navas-Acien MD Phd
and the findings raise serious concern about proposals to use cattle grazing to help control its spread in areas where native bunchgrasses still persist.
which minimizes the water and nutrients available to cheatgrass. Using data from 75 study sites researchers found that high levels of cattle grazing were associated with reduced bunchgrass cover with wider
and allergies and providing the perfect balance of nutrients to help infants grow into strong and healthy toddlers.
which contains high concentrations of nutrients and antibodies for the baby. During this period babies often lose weight
and the University at Buffalo will report its findings on May 12 in Nature. The study was directed by LANGEBIO Director and Professor Luis Herrera-Estrella and UB Professor of Biological sciences Victor Albert with contributions from scientists in the United states Mexico China Singapore Spain and Germany.
which for genes feeds into the machinery that makes proteins. But Herrera-Estrella Albert and their colleagues argue that organisms may not bulk up on genetic junk for reasons of benefit.
That is at three distinct times in the course of its evolution the bladderwort's genome doubled in size with offspring receiving two full copies of the species'entire genome.
The study was supported by CONACYT (Mexico) Howard Hughes Medical Institute the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences and the National Science Foundation.
The above story is provided based on materials by University at Buffalo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
This strain known as H3n2 spread around the globe and eventually killed an estimated 1 million people.
#Earliest archaeological evidence of human ancestors hunting and scavenginga recent Baylor University research study has shed new light on the diet and food acquisition strategies of some the earliest human ancestors in Africa.
Considered in total this study provides important early archaeological evidence for meat eating hunting and scavenging behaviors-cornerstone adaptations that likely facilitated brain expansion in human evolution movement of hominins out of Africa and into Eurasia as well as important shifts in our social behavior anatomy and physiology
According to researchers hominins at KJS met their new energy requirements through an increased reliance on meat eating.
and hyenas were unable to break them open to access their nutrient-rich brains. Tool-wielding hominins at KJS on the other hand could access this tissue
Laura C. Bishop of Liverpool John Moores University; David R. Braun of George washington University; Peter W. Ditchfield of University of Oxford;
but will also inflict climate feedbacks that will decrease the productivity of pasture and soybeans.
however as the natural ecosystems sustain food production maintain water and forest resources regulate climate
#Could eating peppers prevent Parkinsons? Dietary nicotine may hold protective keynew research reveals that Solanaceae--a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine--may provide a protective effect against Parkinson's disease.
The study appearing today in Annals of Neurology a journal of the American Neurological Association
and Child Neurology Society suggests that eating foods that contain even a small amount of nicotine such as peppers
Questionnaires were used to assess participants'lifetime diets and tobacco use which researchers defined as ever smoking more than 100 cigarettes
but as consumption of edible Solanaceae increased Parkinson's disease risk decreased with peppers displaying the strongest association.
which contains much more nicotine than the foods studied. Our study is the first to investigate dietary nicotine
Similar to the many studies that indicate tobacco use might reduce risk of Parkinson's our findings also suggest a protective effect from nicotine or perhaps a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers and tobacco.
#Coumarin in cinnamon and cinnamon-based products and risk of liver damagemany kinds of cinnamon cinnamon-flavored foods beverages and food supplements in the United states use a form of the spice that contains high levels of a natural
substance that may cause liver damage in some sensitive people scientists are reporting. Their study published in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found similar results as those published in the European union.
Ikhlas Khan and colleagues explain that cinnamon which comes from the bark of certain trees is one of the most important flavoring agents used in foods and beverages.
True or Ceylon cinnamon is expensive so most breads sticky buns and other products in the United states use dried cassia bark or cassia cinnamon.
Ceylon cinnamon contains very little coumarin a naturally occurring substance that has been linked to liver damage in people sensitive to the substance.
However cassia cinnamon can contain larger amounts. Khan's team decided to check on the coumarin content of a wide variety of food products.
As found in this study coumarin was present sometimes in substantial amounts in cinnamon-based food supplements
and cinnamon-flavored foods they say. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Soy and tomato may be effective in preventing prostate cancertomatoes and soy foods may be more effective in preventing prostate cancer
when they are eaten together than when either is eaten alone said a University of Illinois study.
In our study we used mice that were engineered genetically to develop an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Even so half the animals that had consumed tomato and soy had no cancerous lesions in the prostate at study's End all mice in the control group--no soy no tomato--developed the disease said John Erdman a U of I professor of food science and nutrition.
From the time they were 4 to 18 weeks old the animals were fed one of four diets:(
1) 10 percent whole tomato powder;(2) 2 percent soy germ;(3) tomato powder plus soy germ;
and (4) a control group that ate neither tomato nor soy. The 4-to 18-week time frame modeled an early and lifelong exposure to the bioactive components in these foods he said.
Eating tomato soy and the combination all significantly reduced prostate cancer incidence. But the combination gave us the best results.
Only 45 percent of mice fed both foods developed the disease compared to 61 percent in the tomato group and 66 percent in the soy group he said.
Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men but the disease has nearly a 100 percent survival rate
if it's caught early. In older men it is often a slow-growing cancer
and these men often choose watchful waiting over radiation and surgical treatments that have said unwelcome side effects Krystle Zuniga co-author of the paper.
Soy isoflavone serum and prostate levels in the mice are similar to those found in Asian men who consume one to two servings of soy daily.
In countries where soy is eaten regularly prostate cancer occurs at significantly lower levels Erdman noted.
How much soy and tomato should a 55-year-old man concerned about prostate health eat in order to receive these benefits?
The results of the mouse study suggest that three to four servings of tomato products per week
and one to two servings of soy foods daily could protect against prostate cancer Zuniga said.
It's better to drink soy milk than to take soy isoflavones. When you eat whole foods you expose yourself to the entire array of cancer-fighting bioactive components in these foods Erdman said.
The researcher's whole-food recommendation is bolstered by the way soy germ performed in this study. He noted that soy germ has a very different isoflavone profile than the rest of the soybean.
Of the isoflavones genistein gets most of the attention. But soy germ is very high in the other isoflavones daidzein
and glycitein and low in genistein he said. It was interesting for the scientists to see that the soy product they used
although low in genistein was still very effective at reducing cancer incidence. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
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