Food for Thought: Should We All Be Eating Insects?

Hey everyone!

It's been a while, but I hope you're enjoying vacation! At least for those of you who aren't doing research, working and/or taking classes this summer. Today I have a short video to present that discusses the potential benefits of consuming insects versus animal protein in terms of digestibility, nutrition content and sustainability. It's a fun short video that poses some questions and even goes as far as to make insect flour and incorporate it into foods!

Check it out, it's only 3 minutes!

Here's the link as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8s1ch5TRw

Have a great weekend!
- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Fish Farming

Hey everyone,

We're in the last month of the semester before finals, I hope you're surviving the strong winds and heat wave that has been unrelenting. On a much cooler note, let's talk about.....aquaculture! What is aquaculture you ask? Put simply, it is farming aquatic organisms.

Given the increasing population and need for sustainable practices, aquaculture presents a solution. For example, a facility roughly the size of an airport runway could produce the equivalent of salmon produced by Norway. While there has been opponents against fish farming due to waste production, potential for harboring disease and problems associated with feed all hope is not lost!

Dr. Yonathan Zohar has a laboratory in Baltimore which has managed to spawn branzino and gilt-head seabream. The environment is kept clean so that the fish do not need antibiotics, chemicals or hormones to maintain health. To reduce detriment to the environment, water is filtered and recycled while any waste produced is broken down by bacteria. Additionally, scientists are developing new feed formulas made from natural ingredients such as algae instead of traditional feed which may contain fish oils.

Here's the article from NPR which also discusses another aqua farm in an industry setting:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/07/298333029/the-future-of-clean-green-fish-farming-could-be-indoor-factories

Thanks!
- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Use of Food Scraps

Hey everyone!

We're getting closer towards the end of the semester! Today I bring you some exciting news! Entrepreneur John Edel has received funds from Illinois to build an anaerobic digester in Chicago. The anaerobic digester will use anaerobic bacteria to break down an estimated 27 tons of food wastes daily to generate methane gas. This will serve as a fuel source to produce electricity to power a brewery, a mushroom farm, a vegetable farm, a fruit farm and an aquaponics system for fish. This is a great step towards utilizing waste for beneficial purposes!

Here's a diagram of how it will work!

Here is the link to the article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/09/300620735/food-scraps-to-fuel-vertical-farmings-rise-in-chicago
And here is information about The Plant: http://www.plantchicago.com/about/

Thanks for reading!
- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Gas, Cows and Global Warming

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the long hiatus from posts, I hope you're all pushing through the semester! We're past the halfway point! Today I bring to you information on greenhouse gases.....in the form of methane produced by livestock! It sounds humorous, but according to the FAO, the amount of methane produced by livestock in 2011 accounted for 39%  of total greenhouse gas emissions stemming from agriculture.

While the suggestion to reduce the amount of meat consumption sounds like an easy fix, this change could have negative consequences as some developing countries rely on agriculture as a source of income. As an alternative, it is recommended that research be focused on increasing efficiency of land use,  reducing the amount of fertilizers utilized and recycling manure. These changes could potentially improve conditions by increasing yield with less land, providing fewer nitrogen sources for soil microbes to convert into nitrous oxide and using the manure as a fuel source instead of being broken down to form nitrous oxide.

If you would like to read more details on this subject, here is the NPR article with an additional link to the FAO report.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/11/301794415/gassy-cows-are-warming-the-planet-and-theyre-here-to-stay

Good luck on midterms!
- Charles

Food for Thought: Gut Bacteria!

Hey everyone!

I don't know about you guys, but I'm still transitioning into our time leap forward thanks to daylight savings! In any case, the semester is moving along and it's almost the middle of March! Today I bring you information about your gut bacteria! Exciting, I know, but please try and contain your bowel movements.

Picture from NPR article, see link below

As many of you might know, it has been suggested that probiotics may confer health benefits due to a number of various reasons, but today I want to discuss an article I read from NPR. Harvard University has been examining the effect of a diet high in meat and dairy. It turns out, the microflora in the gut changes within two days of a high protein and dairy diet, but this alteration has the potential to cause intestinal and inflammation diseases in mice.

As the types of micrboes in the gut began to shift, so did their expression of genes. Bilophila organisms began to dominate the gut as they love their bile (or rather ours!). This is important since there is an increase in bile production when a diet is rich in fats from meat and dairy. Though the Bilophila are assisting us, increased numbers have been associated with the promotion of inflammation.

Just another reason to consume a well balanced diet!
Have a great week everyone!

And as always, if you would like to see the full article, here is the link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/10/250007042/chowing-down-on-meat-and-dairy-alters-gut-bacteria-a-lot-and-quickly

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Honeybees Decline

Hey everyone,

Hope the spring semester is going well! It's been a while but here is a post I've been meaning to write for a few weeks so here it is! It seems these days as if more and more articles, posts, and documentaries are spreading the word on the declining honeybee population. For those who do not know, here are a few important facts about honeybees taken from the Natural Resources Defense Council:

• Since 1990, >25% of managed populations have disappeared in the U.S.
• Bees are pollinators which assist in spreading pollen and seeds
• Pollination is important for >30% of the world's crops and as high as 90% of wild plants
• Hone bees are important for producing food crop

While it is still widely thought that the reduced populations were due to residual pesticides, recent studies suggest there may be another suspect, tobacco ringworm virus. While it is still unknown whether the virus contributes or is responsible for the decline what has been observed are the following:

• The virus initially remained in the gut or salivary glands, but recently has been found throughout the entire bodies of the bees
• The virus is also found in a parasite (varroa mite) that infects the bees
• Tobacco ringworm in addition to the black queen cell virus, deformed wing bee virus and Israel acute paralysis virus were found at higher concentrations prior to colony collapse in studies completed by the U.S. and China

More information can be read here (recommended): http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/files/bees.pdf

National Geographic information: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/honeybee/

Link to Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrodgers/2014/01/31/plant-virus-jumps-1-6-billion-year-species-barrier-to-infect-honeybees/

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Flavor Pairing

Hey Everyone,

Spring semester is right around the corner! Ever wonder why sometimes one spice tastes like another or why absurd sounding combinations end up tasting amazing? It may have to due to shared flavor compounds!
A paper was written discussing the hypothesis that ingredients sharing flavor compounds taste better together than those with different compounds. For example, though it may not sound appealing to consider eating white chocolate and caviar, both contain trimethylamine and additional flavors. What was also interesting was analysis of cuisines by region show that North American and Western European dishes gravitate towards the use of ingredients with similar flavor compounds. East Asian and Southern European dishes on the other hand, avoid the use of similarly flavored ingredients.

To entice you into reading the entire paper take a look at these flavor networks!

The entire paper can be read here:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html

Enjoy!

- Charles

Food for Thought: Moon Turnips!

Hey everyone! 

Finals week is just a few days away so I hope you're all gearing up to hit the books and finish the semester strong! Try and get some sleep and adequate nutrition to make sure you have the energy to get through the next week!

Speaking of nutrition, did anyone ever try those dehydrated space foods? Well here's a big step forward! NASA is currently working on growing cress, turnips and basil on the moon! In order to withstand radiation, atmospheric conditions, extreme temperatures, and gravity differences, NASA is developing a terrarium to support growth of produce. The hope is that even astronauts will one day be able to consume local, farmed fresh veggies similar to we do here on Earth! Whether or not NASA succeeds with their first trial this marks a big moment in history as "this will be the very first life science experiment performed in deep space," according to Bob Bowman, a plant scientist. 

This is a canister that will be deployed in 2015 with a commercial spacecraft known as the Moon Express lander. This canister will create a habit that allows germination and growth of the contained seeds by providing nutrient-rich paper, air, water and regulators for light and temperature. The growth of the plants will be monitored over a period of 5-10 days using cameras.

Good luck on finals everyone!
- Charles Quinto


P.S. For those interested in reading the full article it's available here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/03/248373683/moon-turnips-nasa-takes-gardening-to-new-heights

Food for Thought: Calories Influence Eating Habits

Hey everyone,

Thanksgiving is next week and it typically signifies the start of the holiday season! I can't speak for anyone else but this is also the time I indulge in the over abundance of available food. No shame.

A study done in Yale showed that the caloric value of a food item affects eating behavior independently of how much the food itself is enjoyed! Our brain associates flavors with a caloric value and over time we have a preference for this flavor due to "flavor-nutrient conditioning" versus the actual flavor itself. Test subjects were given flavored beverages deficient in calories. After a set period, unflavored calories were added to the beverages. At the end of the taste test, the researchers observed an increased rating for flavors containing the added calories. 

Additional experiments completed found that the metabolic response to the consumption of glucose controlled responses involved with cues that signal calories. Maybe that is why we "love" food that is "bad" for us, because these items typically are overloaded with calories.

Here is the original post:

http://www.futurity.org/its-the-calories-not-flavor-youre-craving/

Here is the full published research article:

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0960982213004090/1-s2.0-S0960982213004090-main.pdf?_tid=de343814-5147-11e3-8fba-00000aacb35e&acdnat=1384885666_3983fc233faaaf1e290f935372098790

Enjoy!

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: More Pork, Hold the Antibiotics

Hey everyone,

It's November! Today's article is about pigs and antibiotics! As you may know, one of the problems we are facing with foodborne illness is the antibiotic resistance the bacteria exhibit. This is largely due to the use of antibiotics in farms. What you may not know is that feeding animals small amounts of antibiotics actually correlated with increased growth rate which is part of the reason they were used in the first place!

Steve Dritz, a specialist in swine nutrition at Kansas State University, explains that 60 years ago there was a a trend between increased growth rate of animals and the consumption of antibiotics. Observed effects showed 12-15% increased growth with antibiotics with the added benefit of requiring less feed in order to reach full weight! Over time, additional studies performed observed similar growth-promotion with the introduction of antibiotics.

Dritz says that in the 1990s, pork production changed dramatically. Instead of pigs being born and raised in the same barn or barns within a close location,  pigs were now born in one location and moved to a new site. In previous years, pigs would develop in areas with a high risk of infections spreading from one generation to the next. The new regulation ensured that the piglets were growing in a clean area free of disease. Groups of pigs brought onto one site are kept together without mixing pigs from other groups. The regulations are so strict that even workers moving between groups must change their boots to prevent any transmission of infectious diseases.

Post implementation of the new farming standards, pigs began to grow at the same rate as seen with antibiotics. Dritz carrried out experiments and found that the effect of antibiotics on growth were no longer as high as in the past. Though it is thought that the reduction of disease and good hygiene are responsible for the increased growth rate, no definitive conclusions have been made. 

What is clear is that pigs can grow just as quickly without antibiotics with the decreased risk of organisms becoming resistant to drugs we may need to treat illnesses. However, change is slow and not all farmers have taken Dritz' advice nor were they all convinced with the evidence presented. Unfortunately it's difficult to fight against a large population's perception, especially one that has been instilled for such a long time.

With time, hopefully change will occur and we can move towards more natural ways of raising animals that are better.

Here's the article from NPR.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/04/241603861/why-are-pig-farmers-still-using-growth-promoting-drugs

Thanks for reading!
- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Food Day

Hey everyone!

October 24th is Food Day! What is food day? "It's a nationwide celebration and movement for healthy, affordable and sustainable food." The aim of Food Day is to bring awareness to consumers and promote a better diet.

Want to take part? Go to the Agyros Forum for some great events!
Health Fair 12:30pm - 2:30pm
Come talk to local farmers, Sodexo and even students in the food product development class!
You may even get the chance to taste some new products!
Cooking Demo (FREE FOOD!) 1pm - 2pm
Hosted by Chef James Douglas!

Learn more about Food Day because there's so much more than I can fit in this blog post!
There's a link below to find all the information about it!

There is also a Food Literacy Quiz that has some interesting facts such as:
- Adding water to plants is still considered damaging to the ecosystem because it is non-rain water and therefore not a natural event!
- It takes about 3 gal of water to produce one serving of lettuce versus 500 gal to produce one serving of a typical hamburger
- Americans waste 40% of the U.S. food supply, or about 20lbs of food per person per month!
- Honeybees are responsible for pollinating about 1/3 of the entire food supply in the U.S.
- For every $1 spent on food, only about 11 cents ends up going back to the farmer
- 95% of the world's total oyster consumption is sourced from sustainable farming operations

Lastly, Food Day is partnering with Rouxbe Online Cooking School so they're allowing supporters and participants with a FREE 30-day pass to the online cooking school! So if you're interested you MUST SIGN UP ON FOOD DAY! http://www.foodday.org/unleash_your_inner_cook_on_food_day_blog

Learn about Food Day at:
http://www.foodday.org/

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Peanut Butter & Alzheimer's Disease

Hey Everyone,

Fall is definitely here if you couldn't tell from the chilly temperatures and the pumpkin themed flavors and aromas everywhere! I personally love the smell of the traditional pumpkin spices used - the cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger...all of it! Speaking of scents, did you know that patients with Alzheimer's have an altered sense of smell with their left nostril being significantly more impaired than the right!?

It turns out that the ability to smell is one of the first sense affected over the course of cognitive decline due to its association with the first cranial nerve. The University of Florida has been studying smell sensitivity using peanut butter! Generally, our sense of smell uses two distinct sensations: the olfactory sense and the trigeminal sense. Peanut butter was chosen because it is "a pure odorant that is only detected by the olfactory nerve."

Normal clinical diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's take weeks to receive confirmatory results so preliminary tests with immediate results such as the peanut butter test could be beneficial. The article describes the method used to test each individual's ability to smell peanut butter and is posted below. Check it out! It even has a short video.

Here is a link (with a video!) to the University of Florida's Newspage:
http://news.ufl.edu/2013/10/08/alzheimers-test/

Here is a 2nd article link:
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/if-you-can-smell-you-may-not-have-alzheimers?dom=tw&src=SOC

Food for Thought: Tomato + Potato = TomTato!!

Lo and behold, the TomTato!

Hey everyone,

To get you through the midweek grind, I offer you a Frankenplant in celebration of Halloween!! As NPR has pointed out, your fries AND ketchup now come in one complete package!What is awesome about this plant is that it grows potatoes in the soil and above ground are tomatoes that are sweeter than those on the market right now! (At least that's what they say). What's even more exciting is that it is not a genetically modified product!!

A UK company known as Thompson and Morgan has grafted (spliced the stems of both the tomato and potato plant and allowed them to heal) the two crops to grow as one! The director Paul Hansord explained that it's difficult to achieve grafting as the stem needs to be the same thickness, but they managed to pull it off after 15 years! The fruits of their labor is actually, well a fruit! Partly anyway...

Here's a link to a short video made by Tompson and Morgan on the plant, check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Ky1cyTuzk

In addition, here are a couple articles I used to summarize the information for you guys!

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/27/226716504/the-last-word-in-business

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112963057/tomato-potato-grows-on-single-plant-100113/

http://www.onenewspage.us/n/UK/74w2qlfp8/UK-firm-unveils-single-plant-that-grows-tomatoes.htm

Enjoy!

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Blue Eggs

Around Easter you may see pastel colored eggs or even wacky colored ones! But if you come across blue eggs from chicken breeds from Chile or China guess what? It has a retrovirus!!!!!

Apparently "Araucana, a chicken breed from Chile, and Dongxiang and Lushi chickens in China lay blue eggs." The blue eggshell color is controlled by an autosomal dominant gene SLCO1B3 mapped to a part of chromosome 1. An avian retrovirus EAV-HP is inserted upstream of the gene and in different locations in the various breeds. It is thought that this came about independently of each other, but after its appearance, was selectively bred to continue the production of blue eggs.

Check out the original article posted on a virology blog here:
http://www.virology.ws/2013/09/11/a-retrovirus-makes-chicken-eggshells-blue/

To support it, here is a scientific article:
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1003183


Have a great week!

- Charles Quinto

Food for Thought: Cookie Dunking Science

Hey Everyone,

Here we go heading into another week of the semester! It looks like the heat is finally easing up on us, phew! I read this article the other day, and some of you may have read it since it posted a few months ago, but for those who have not it's an interesting read!

It was posted on NPR and discusses the tradition of dunking cookies in drinks and whether or not there is a biochemical reaction causing it to taste better! Cutting to the chase for those who don't have time to read the entire article, a device known as the MS-Nose was developed at the University of Nottingham to conduct tests on the levels of flavor released! In the end, it is suggested that a flavor known as "methylbutanol" is increased when something such as a biscuit is dipped in tea! (Though I am curious if it is a result of the tea or if it's merely a result of the biscuit being broken up prior to consumption thereby increasing the amount of flavor binding to receptors...food for thought!)

Here's the article!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/20/174858265/dunking-science-do-cookies-really-taste-better-dipped-in-tea

Unfortunately, the website of the company performing the test did not post any research article links, but it's still something interesting to read!
http://www.flavometrix.co.uk/index.html

- Charles Quinto