Halften

I’ve been going on about this for ages, but look - here it is in infographic form (see...

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 13:19:04 +1000

I’ve been going on about this for ages, but look - here it is in infographic form (see previous post). Australia does pretty well with production based losses because of our infrastructure and high tech supply chains, but we’re massive wasters. Try not to buy more than you need. Try not to buy meat without purpose. Try not to buy fruit and veg that will just sit there uneaten. Try not to throw out fruit and veg just because it isn’t perfect. Try not to throw out things that are still fine but past their use by date (hello milk with a 20 AUG use by date in my fridge and in my tea). Eat leftovers (leftovers are awesome). Don’t feed prime cuts to your animals. If you eat meat you should do it with some sense of what it actually is (it’s a animal that was killed for your pleasure/sustenance) and take care not to waste it. Composting organic waste is great if that means the nutrients will stay in the food production cycle (some fertilisers used by farmers are finite, and are lost from the system if they sit in landfill).

I don’t expect people to make breadcrumbs (or French toast!) from bread crusts, or freeze yoghurt and fresh produce (coconut milk works really well), or use bones for stock. I do but that’s my thing. My mother and grandmother are both big preservers, and a few of my family still hunt for meat, so I grew up with it. I’m an ag scientist. Thinking about this is what I do. I get that time is a consideration as much as money. Making stock is a bit of a faff. Going to the supermarket more than once a week might not be an option. But avoiding buying a pack of mince and then letting it sit in the fridge until it spoils is pretty easy.

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as the food we waste could be eaten by someone else. You knew your parents guilting you with starving kids in Africa was silly, as you threatened to scrape your half eaten spag bol into an envelope and send it to them. Distribution of food is another issue, and stopping waste isn’t going to magically help with that. But there are benefits to the environment, to the sustainability of food production, to the future of humanity (if you’ll let me get dramatic), and to your food budget too.

Infographics of the Week: Food Waste Facts

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 13:07:00 +1000

dhgisme:

Earlier today I reported on the new Natural Resources Defense Council report examining theÂ areas of the U.S. food supply chain generating the most waste Â and opportunities for reducing such waste.

The following infographics further break down and visualize variations of Â staggering food waste data. Which do you think is most effective?

The first infographic from Face the Facts USA demonstrates the relationship betweenÂ waste and hunger.

The second infographic from Door To Door Organics explains why food waste is a problem and offers tips for what consumers can do to reduce waste.

The final infographic fromÂ Next Generation FoodÂ illustrates Â food waste’s impact on climate change resulting from excess freshwater and fossil fuel consumption, as well as methane and CO2 emissions from food decomposing in the landfill.

Original Article

Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:50:23 +1100

Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat:

yourhealthista:

I hate the title of this article but the content is pretty good. It also explains why we’re seeing more and more cases of celiac disease and gluten intolerance — and why going gluten-free is more than just a diet fad. Here’s a taste:

[We now eat dwarf wheat, a genetic hybrid and manipulation of the wheat our ancestors ate.] Dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A. This is how we get big fluffy Wonder Bread and Cinnabons.

Here’s the downside. Two slices of whole wheat bread now raise your blood sugar more than two tablespoons of table sugar.

There is no difference between whole wheat and white flour here. The biggest scam perpetrated on the unsuspecting public is the inclusion of “whole grains” in many processed foods full of sugar and wheat, giving the food a virtuous glow. The best way to avoid foods that are bad for you is to stay away from foods with health claims on the labels. They are usually hiding something bad.

Not only does this dwarf, FrankenWheat, contain the super starch, but it also contains super gluten which is much more likely to create inflammation in the body. And in addition to a host of inflammatory and chronic diseases caused by gluten, it causes obesity and diabetes.

Gluten is that sticky protein in wheat that holds bread together and makes it rise. The old fourteen-chromosome-containing Einkorn wheat codes for the small number of gluten proteins, and those that it does produce are the least likely to trigger celiac disease and inflammation. The new dwarf wheat contains twenty-eight or twice as many chromosomes and produces a large variety of gluten proteins, including the ones most likely to cause celiac disease.

[…]

A major study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that hidden gluten sensitivity (elevated antibodies without full-blown celiac disease) was shown to increase risk of death by 35 to 75 percent, mostly by causing heart disease and cancer.[4] Just by this mechanism alone, over 20 million Americans are at risk for heart attack, obesity, cancer and death.

No. No. No no no. If were were still eating the wheat our ancestors ate our world would be incredibly different. There’d be a whole lot less people to start with. You go on your gluten free diets, fine, pretend you’re stone age man and grind up grass seed heads with a rock if you have the time. But don’t forget that literally millions of people’s lives have been saved from starvation by dwarf wheat. Billions of people are alive today that likely wouldn’t have even been born without dwarf plant varieties and the other research and extension to developing countries that was the green revolution. But yeah, I suppose being fat is far worse a fate.

The Green Revolution occurred in the decades in the middle of last century, and these dwarf plant varieties were developed with good old fashioned plant breeding that has been used (if unknowingly) for thousands of years. You should read the wikipedia page here, and take note of this quote from the father of the the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug:

“Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They’ve never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels…If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they’d be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things.”

Your privilege is showing. And your anti-science stance (Frankenwheat? really?).