Why you might want to look a bit closer at what you're eating. 15 March 2012Last updated at 21:48 ET By Victoria King Political reporter, BBC News Economic strife, unemployment and the high cost of living could lead to a growth in black market food sales and food fraud. That was the warning at a London conference on global food risk. Food is an essential for all of us, but in these straitened times, it's an expense as well. As a result, people may go to great lengths to get it for less - while those who produce it may cut corners to boost their sometimes meagre profits. The food we buy in supermarkets must meet rigorous standards to make sure it is safe to eat - but those standards increase the costs. Stealing an animal from a farmer's field or buying goods out of the back of a van is certainly cheaper, and those in the know fear the temptation of those options could prove too strong for some.
Continue reading the main story Threats to our food Indirect risk Continue reading the main story Policing the problem Insects and GM Continue reading the main story. A rooftop fish farm for every family? It may look nothing more than an oddly shaped greenhouse, but the 'Globe (hedron)' is a concept for a rooftop aquaponics dome that Urban Farmers hopes will help address global food security Image Gallery (11 images) It may look nothing more than an oddly shaped greenhouse, but the "Globe (hedron)", a collaboration by food futurists Urban Farmers AG and and designer Antonio Scarponi of Conceptual Devices, is a concept for a self-contained rooftop aquaponics dome that its designers hope will help address global food security.
The company is seeking funding to turn the concept into a prototype. View all Aquaponics is a marriage of aquaculture (farming aquatic animals, like fish or prawns) and hydroponics (growing plants in water). Urban Farmers has set up a crowd funding page on Kickstarter-alike IndieGoGo, seeking US$15,000 to turn the idea into a prototype. Source: IndiGoGo page, Urban Farmers AG, Conceptual Devices About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles. Lab Meat Would Sidestep ‘Grossly Inefficient’ Livestock Industry. Though human life has changed much over a few hundred thousand years, the drive to kill and eat other animals lingers on from our earliest days. But with technology transforming so many other aspects of daily life, will feedlots and slaughterhouses someday go the way of stone tools and cave dwellings?
They may if scientists succeed in their experiments in culturing meat muscle tissue grown in a laboratory dish. Supporters of the experiments see cultured meat as a way to end environmental degradation, not to mention addressing ethical qualms about eating animals. The livestock system we have is just so grossly inefficient, it really is like an artifact of an older, pre-industrial age, said Jason Matheny, the founder of the nonprofit organization New Harvest, which funds evaluative papers on meat substitutes and small lab studies on in vitro meat. In growing the stuff of steaks, sausages and short ribs, scientists are adapting techniques used to grow tissue for medical applications. Finally, Fake Chicken Worth Eating. Lab-grown meat is first step to artificial hamburger. BBC Food - Will we be buying bacon and pork sausages next year? 12 September 2012Last updated at 08:57 By Michelle Warwicker BBC Food There could soon be a global pork shortage, and a sharp rise in prices, the National Pig Association warns.
But will British consumers be willing to pay more to save their bacon and sausages? Served as bacon rashers in an English breakfast, roasted with crackling, stir-fried in a noodle dish or used as the key meat in a regional sausage recipe, pork is the most eaten meat in the world. "Pork has always played an important part in British cuisine," says Phil Brady, spokesperson for the British Sausage Appreciation Society. So much so, there are more than 470 recipes and flavours of British sausages in use today.
"We are a nation of pork producers and eaters," says food writer Karen Burns-Booth. "And the low cost makes it accessible for families for good meals. " But the cheapest of red meats that provides the flavour base for the nation's beloved bangers is under threat. "There's so many things you can do with pork," he says. Food Sleuths: Sniffing Out Where Our Meals Are Really From. Lesley Chesson once took a road trip and collected as many "milk chugs" from McDonald’s Happy Meals as she could stuff inside a giant cooler in the back of her car. Another time, she requested students bring her cans of Coca-Cola. Chesson also asked dairy farmers to fill travel-sized shampoo bottles and overnight her milk samples.
It’s not that she’s a hard-drinking researcher. These samples were all destined for forensic analysis. Chesson is what you might call a food sleuth, a scientist whose primary interest is food authenticity. She’s a staff scientist and researcher at the University of Utah and also works at a research company called IsoForensics in Salt Lake City. Food fraud, economic adulteration, and food counterfeiting tend to fly under the radar of federal regulators, despite estimated global losses of about $49 billion, because adulteration doesn’t always translate into sick and dying kids (perhaps with the notable exception of melamine in milk).