Architect: Vertical farm in San Diego would revolutionize U.S. produce consumption
February 26, 2013 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Farming
A young architect hopes a developer will decide to build his 23-acre farm in the center of San Diego. Unlike most farms, this one would reach 500 feet into the sky.
Brandon Martella, 24, graduated from the New School of Architecture and Design last year and quickly finished his plans for the Live Share Grow tower. He told KPBS San Diego on Tuesday that his vertical farm was an attempt to revolutionize the industry, placing consumers closer to their food.
Half of the tower would contain residential units while the other half would contain growing space. Martella estimated that his farm could produce 500,000 thousand pounds of food every three months. The farm doesn’t require pesticides and could reuse the residents’ excrement as fertilizer, making environmentally friendly.
Food Manufacturers are Fraudulently Diluting High-Quality Food with Inferior Quality Junk
February 5, 2013 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
In a predictable trend, food manufacturers are fraudulently diluting high-quality food with inferior quality items.
As ABC News reports:
A new scientific examination by the non-profit food fraud detectives the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), discovered rising numbers of fake ingredients in products from olive oil to spices to fruit juice.
“Food products are not always what they purport to be,” Markus Lipp, senior director for Food Standards for the independent lab in Maryland, told ABC News.
In a new database to be released Wednesday, and obtained exclusively by ABC News today, USP warns consumers, the FDA and manufacturers that the amount of food fraud they found is up by 60 percent this year.
In addition, 70% of all ground beef was found to contain “pink slime”.
Butchers use “meat glue” to create “bigger” cuts of beef, chicken, lamb and fish, even though it leads to much higher levels of food poisoning:
U.S. allows chemicals in food that are illegal elsewhere
January 21, 2013 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
When Gatorade fan Sarah Kavanagh learned that her favorite drink contains an emulsifier banned in other countries over health concerns, she was taken aback.
“I was shocked that they’d put their consumers at risk like that and that the FDA would allow something like that to be put in products,” said the Mississippi 15-year-old, who launched a petition in November asking Gatorade to remove the ingredient, called brominated vegetable oil, or BVO.
The petition, which has attracted more than 200,000 supporters on change.org, notes that the ingredient shares an element — bromine — with some flame retardants used in furniture and plastics. Some studies on BVO indicate it can build up in fatty tissues and cause reproductive and behavioral problems in rodents.
It’s illegal to use the chemical as a food additive in the European Union India, Nepal, Canada, Brazil and Japan. Other ingredients that are allowed in American food but not in other countries include certain artificial colors and additives to flour.
Why the difference? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration would not provide a representative for an interview, but in past statements to the media and on its website the agency has presented a variety of reasons for allowing controversial chemicals in food, ranging from a lack of resources for research to assurances that the substances are safe in small doses.
Study: Hot chocolate tastes better in an orange cup
January 3, 2013 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
European scientists say they have found further evidence that how you serve food and drink matters hugely in the perception of taste.
Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Oxford recruited 57 volunteers and asked them to taste hot chocolate served in plastic cups with four different colours — white, cream, red and orange with white on the inside.
The chocolate was the same in all the samples, but the volunteers found that the flavour was better when the drink was served in the orange or cream-coloured cups.
“The colour of the container where food and drink are served can enhance some attributes like taste and aroma,” Betina Piqueras-Fiszman of the Polytechnic University of Valencia said in a press release.
Could Prop. 37 Kill Monsanto’s GM Seeds?
October 10, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Farming
You’d be forgiven for not noticing—unless you live in California, where you’ve likely been bombarded by geotargeted web ads and TV spots—but this election could spur a revolution in the way our food is made. Proposition 37, a popular Golden State ballot initiative, would require the labeling of food containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients. The food and agriculture industries are spending millions to defeat it, and with good reason: As we’ve seen with auto emissions standards and workplace smoking bans, as California goes, so goes the nation.
Scientists warn food shortages could turn us all into vegetarians
August 26, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world’s leading water scientists.
“There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,” the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
Severe allergic reactions in infants often untreated
June 25, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Health News
Severe allergic reactions among babies with food allergies are common, but caregivers fail to give potentially life-saving injections when infants are at risk of arrested breathing in about two-thirds of cases, U.S. researchers have found.
To find out about the frequency, circumstances and responses to food allergies among infants, researchers studied 512 infants aged three to 15 months who were diagnosed with allergies to milk, eggs or peanuts or likely had such an allergy.
Over three years, reactions were reported in more than half of the children.
“There was a high frequency of reactions caused by accidental and non-accidental exposures,” Dr. Scott Sicherer, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and his co-authors concluded.
“Undertreatment of severe reactions with epinephrine was a substantial problem.”
About one in 10 reactions were severe, and of those, only 30 per cent were treated with epinephrine, a potential life saver.
“One thing we can learn from the study is the importance of reminding parents and caregivers [on] reading food labels, being extra careful in food preparation and not being afraid to administer epinephrine if necessary if a child is in distress and needs to be treated because of a severe reaction,” said CBC’s medical specialist Dr. Karl Kabasele.
Ottawa to allow slaughterhouses to process already dead animals
May 14, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Farming, Food Watch
OTTAWA—The federal government wants to allow the carcasses of already dead animals to be processed in slaughterhouses for human consumption, a move that is raising concerns about the safety of Canada’s food system.
The Conservative government is pitching the change as a way to cut red tape and provide greater flexibility to slaughterhouse operators.
But the New Democrats are raising a red flag saying the move invites possible “contamination” of the food supply.
“Under the present regulations . . . it has to come in alive, be slaughtered on site,” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland), the party’s agriculture critic.
“Now you can bring in dead stock. It’s okay to bring in that animal into a slaughterhouse, have it cut, wrapped . . . for human consumption.
“The real fear is how did it die, (and) under what circumstances did it die.”
FDA Proposes Rules for Nanotechnology in Food
April 23, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
Regulators are proposing that food companies that want to use tiny engineered particles in their packaging may have to provide extra testing data to show the products are safe.
The Food and Drug Administration issued tentative guidelines Friday for food and cosmetic companies interested in using nanoparticles, which are measured in billionths of a meter. Nanoscale materials are generally less than 100 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper, in comparison, is 100,000 nanometers thick. A human hair is 80,000 nanometers thick.
Monsanto Threatens to Sue Vermont for GMO Labeling Bill
April 9, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Farming, Food Watch
When Judge Naomi Buchwald dismissed OSGATA et al vs. Monsanto last month, it was on the basis that she did not think the corporation had any interest in suing the organic growers and trade organizations that took the case to court. But as it turns out, their fears of a lawsuit-happy Monsanto are somewhat justified. According to reports, the biotech behemoth has threatened to sue the state of Vermont if it presses ahead with the signing of the Vermont Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act (H. 722), a bill that would make Vermont the first of the United States to require labeling of genetically engineered food.
Vermont is not a state that messes around with its food – last year, the state’s Agency of Agriculture threatened to sue McDonald’s over due to its Fruit & Maple Oatmeal not actually containing any real natural maple syrup. This also isn’t the first time Vermont and Monsanto have tangled, as the state was sued in the 1990s over the labeling of bovine growth hormone in milk. This time around, however, Monsanto has reportedly threatened legal action toward the state over its H. 722 bill.
