Sunday, December 12

Thinking about food can make you less hungry?



I was flipping channels yesterday and came across CBS talking about a new study being done at Carnegie Mellon, by researcher Carey Morewedge, about thinking about your food. The hypothesis is that if you concentrate on eating your food and every part of the process of consuming that food item (smell, taste, texture) that it would make you have less of a craving to eat said food.

-Rachel

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20025295-10391704.html

The Real Reason McDonalds Failed in Jamaica

After watching Life and Debt I researched how McDonald's has been fairing in Jamaica. As of 2005, it was out of business, just a few years after it opened in Jamaica. But why?

Simply put, the portions were not big enough! Eloquently expressed by Jamaica Star columnist, Leighton Levy.

http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20051007/cleisure/cleisure1.html

HA!

Tessa

Thursday, December 9

organosulfur, magnesium, omega3fatty, phosphorous, zinc, etc :)






http://healthnews.benabraham.com/html/superfoods_of_great_value.html

Wednesday, December 8

Burying Seeds near Norway and More GM discussion

I was looking through an old Seed magazine ( "Science is Culture" is there header), and was reading up on how a small group of Artic Ocean islands, north of Norway, will become home to the world's largest bank of seeds. I realized it was from 2007 so I decided to look at their website to try to get an update.
I searched the article's name, and the Svalbard bank, a project of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which was to function as a centralized depository located on or inside politically stable ground. The Svalbard vault which is built into a sandstone mountain is to withstand just about any imaginable catastrophe. One of the questions and challenges was how to get the seeds to Svalbard intact, along with building a digital infrastructure to sort and catalogue the seeds currently stored in places from Colorado, to Peru to Zambia. The deposit opened in the winter of 2008. A strong interest and point to the article was how protecting this genetic material , which is the foundation of all agriculture and the link or wall between thriving societies and potential societies, is more important now than ever.
This article came out nearly 3 years ago, and as I tried to look into what had happened here, there wasn't much I could find. I wonder whether or not it has advanced or helped in this 3 year span since this was written, but it sounds like we are finding ourselves still in a place where these genetic material and seeds are more relevant and crucial as ever to find a solution and way to feed the world.

I did find an article titled Scientific Flip Flop.
It is a debate between "5 experts" who discuss the roots of the GM opposition, whether we've achieved real scientific consensus and the role of big "agribussiness."
The article starts it's debate discussing a pest resistant maize manufactured by Monsanto called "Mon 810"
But even though Mon 810 has an official sanction under EU law, countries such as France, Austria, Greece, Hungary, and Luxembourg have imposed national bans on the GE crop and apparently Germany was just added to this list.
That's huge.

Apparently Europe in general is turning increasingly against GE crops.
Most Europeans do not seem to be anti-science, in fact Europe fully embraces the scientific consencus on global warming. So another question and debate of this article investigates whether or not it is about the technology itself or the mistrust of "big agribusiness."

I think these are obvious questions we have been pondering ourselves in class with this last debate!

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/scientific_flip-flop/\

thats the link!




Bird

Tuesday, December 7

urban foraging in Chicago

We have discussed farming, but what about foraging? In the city? 

Here is a short documentary about urban foraging in Chicago.

http://vimeo.com/2666963

-Jessica

Future Food at Moto Restaurant


Over the thanksgiving break I visited the Museum of Science and Industry and found myself in the "future" section. One futuristic scientist caught my eye because he's also a well-known chef. Homaro Cantu is the Executive Chef of Moto Restaurant right here in Chicago and he also has a tv show called "Future Food". He's invented some pretty incredible (and EDIBLE) stuff from edible paper that tastes like chips & salsa to a tuna maki roll made out of watermelon.

This past month he did a TED talk on the Future of Food and how he's trying to create a sustainable way of eating. Check it out. Pretty sweet... (pun intended)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk52YkSV8PE

-Lauren

Sunday, December 5

Documentary: The Pipe


In the most dramatic clash of cultures in modern Ireland, the rights of farmers over their fields, and of fishermen to their fishing grounds, has come in direct conflict with one of the worlds most powerful oil companies. When the citizens look to their state to protect their rights, they find that the state has put Shell’s right to lay a pipeline over their own.

The Pipe is a story of a community tragically divided, and how they deal with a pipe that could bring economic prosperity or destruction of a way of life shared for generations.




http://www.thepipethefilm.com/main-sect/home/


Grasshopper Sushi

Went out to dinner for a friend's birthday last week and they happily gave him their grasshopper special, on the house. The owner/manager even took a picture of him eating the grasshopper sushi.
The article may be heavy on the food review side but I think this relates to the water bugs AY ate several months ago.


-Liberty H

Palin's Reckless Views on Obesity

Roland Martin asks Sarah Palin to stick a fork in it for criticizing Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign against obesity. Read the article here and get the whole story.

-Liberty H