Like many of the most abundant foods, the apple has depths obscured by its familiarity. In 1965, Elspeth Huxley wrote: “You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one as long as it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.” The modern food industry demands uniformity, but thousands of varieties of apple still exist beyond the cosmetically perfect supermarket shelves. Our climate can’t compete to produce the large, sweet apples that dominate the global market, but our brisk winters and long summers produce apples of subtle complexity. The apples of East Anglia – and elsewhere – deserve rediscovery, recognition and preservation.
Amongst all the current – and long overdue – discussion of global food security, a new mantra is increasingly heard: food production must double by 2050 if a projected world population of 9 billion is to be fed. But the world is already producing more than double the food we actually consume: we don’t need another Green Revolution, just to eliminate profligate waste.
As the genetic origins of the novel strain of H1N1 influenza A become better understood, serious and urgent questions are emerging over the role of intensive livestock farming in the development and transmission of potentially pandemic flu viruses.
This isn’t just about the now-notorious Granjas Carroll de Mexico farm (part-owned by Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer) in Veracruz, Mexico. Even if the virus is ultimately linked to the Granjas Carroll CAFO, it would only make it the last link in a complex process of virus mutation, reassortment and transmission that’s played out on pig farms over the last 10 (or even 90) years.
Breakfast cereals have long attracted the attention of food and health campaigners: often perceived and marketed as a healthy food, many contain high quantities of salt, fat and sugar.
Nutritional labelling can be confusing and make comparisons difficult, while recommended servings are mostly smaller than we actually consume. Health claims are often misleading and less healthy cereals marketed to children.
While the cereal industry appears happy to produce a limited range of healthier cereals, it’s also committed to the continued production and marketing of less healthy lines.
There’s currently no scientific certainty about the source of the new Mexican strain of H1N1 flu, but circumstantial evidence is emerging that should direct epidemiological investigations.
While the mainstream media concentrated on the spread and pandemic potential of the new virus, bloggers were the first to investigate and question circumstantial suggestions that the new strain may have emerged from intensive pig production units.
There are important questions to ask about the source of the virus but it’s important to keep in mind the essential difference between circumstance and epidemiology.
The new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus that has emerged in Mexico, with particular virulence, and is now spreading to other parts of the globe is almost universally reported as swine flu. The name suggests a clear and direct link with pigs, but is it really that simple?
The G8’s first ever agriculture summit took place over the weekend of 18th to 20th April 2009, in response to the “world food emergency”.
With alarming volatility in world food prices and growing concern over the sustainability of our food system, food security is firmly on the international agenda after decades of complacency.
The Tracing Paper followed the build-up, progress and conclusion of the first ever G8 agriculture summit and examined some of the underlying issues of food security and sustainability.
Ever wondered how Easter eggs are made? Cadbury opens the doors of its Bournville factory, which produces about half the UK’s Easter eggs, 40 million a year. This short BBC film provides a fascinating insight into the process behind the jauntily packaged eggs we devour every Easter.
There’s a surreal fascination in the endless eggs proceeding smoothly along conveyors belts – sometimes marching along in neat rows, later whizzing in single file towards the robot arms that fit the half-shells together with faultless precision. When the egg is complete, it’s wrapped and spun under a roller to smooth its foil. After all this automation, it comes as a surprise to see real people adding the bags of chocolate buttons to each packet.
Since the Food Standards Agency advised parents of children with hyperactivity to avoid certain colour additives in food, it has kept a partial list of products declared free of the offending additives. But which products contain the colours associated with child hyperactivity? Unfortunately, hundreds still do. Action on Additives provides a useful database of products but searching ingredient lists identifies many more still.
Also posted in food matters | Tagged additives, health |
Mammalian excreta, rodent filth, insect filth, mould, rot, insects, larvae, mites, insect eggs, sand and grit, mildew, parasites: an unappetising list, but the US Food and Drug Administration publishes a useful handbook detailing the acceptable amounts of such contaminants in a range of foods.
US consumers are told to expect to find up to 60 aphids / thrips / mites in every 100g of frozen broccoli (but only up to 30 in frozen Brussels sprouts), up to 60 insect fragments in a 100g chocolate bar, up to 4 rodent hairs in 25g of curry powder, and a “copepod accompanied by pus pockets” in 3% of their red fish fillets. These are the specified action levels, below which there is “no inherent hazard to health”.
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