Can We Make Enough Food To Eat Without Cutting Down All The Trees? Brazil has pulled off an environmental coup. Amazon deforestation is down 78% from its 2004 peak, while agricultural production continues to climb. How does a country that lost millions of hectares of forest every year to cattle ranchers and soy farmers turn things around in less than a decade? Enforcement of conservation laws, smart agricultural policies, and environmentalist-led boycotts take much of the credit. Yet those are unlikely to be enough, according to a new analysis. The pressure to clear the world’s forests is mounting again, as commodity demand for food and biofuels picks up.
An initiative to do so is known as Roundtable-REDD. By making "sustainable" agricultural projects more attractive and competitive than their conventional agribusiness counterparts, the initiative are intended to save forests while feeding the world, particularly in tropical rainforest nations. Not everyone is embracing the new approach. Enter the Food Stylist.
Prepare to be amazed. The video above comes from Hope Bagozzi, Director of Marketing for McDonald’s Canada. It’s a no-nonsense response to a cringe-worthy customer question: “Why does your food look different in the advertising than what is in the store?” The video isn’t amazing because of the process involved in shooting food for advertisements — although that process is pretty interesting. It’s amazing because, quite simply, it’s honest. How vs Why Granted, the video is more concerned with how food looks different than why it looks different. To answer the question of why all of this is necessary would be to delve into human psychology and its relationship to advertising. In other words: We do things this way to make the product look as good as possible, which — and here’s the unstated part — hopefully makes you want you to buy the product. A Double Standard? This same basic process is at work in ads for vacuums and sports cars.
Food, however, seems to be exceptional. Reports from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change has reviewed the scientific evidence to identify a pathway to achieving food security in the context of climate change. Food systems must shift to better meet human needs and, in the long term, balance with planetary resources. This will demand major interventions, at local to global scales, to transform current patterns of food production, distribution and consumption. Investment, innovation, and deliberate effort to empower the world's most vulnerable populations will be required to construct a global food system that adapts to climate change and ensures food security while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and sustaining our natural resource base.
Final Report (March 2012) Final Report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Summary for Policy Makers (November 2011) English Francais Espanol Português Background Studies Evidence from Major Assessment Reports on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change. 2011 Global Food Policy Report. MPs call for wider food strategy. 12 May 2012Last updated at 21:47 ET MPs said obesity and diet related illness were on the increase while food security was under threat The government needs to tackle the UK's "failing food system" by linking its policies on health, environment and education, a committee of MPs has said. The Environmental Audit Committee said a focus on sustainable intensification - or increasing food yields - risked "damaging the environment and society". It called for gardening and cooking to be part of school curriculums, and for stricter junk food advertising limits. Defra said it was trying to boost food production at less environmental cost.
"We spend £400m a year on agriculture and food research, we're close to publishing the ambitious Green Food Project to make the whole food chain as sustainable as possible," a spokeswoman said. "We're also pushing hard for food security to be high on the agenda at Rio +20 [UN sustainable development summit in Brazil] next month. " Unifying policy areas “Start Quote. 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.
Food is now huffable. You know what's old news? Eating. And if swallowing drinkified food is turning out to be too much work for you, you'll be excited to hear that food is now inhaleable. Literally. Le Whaf is a device invented by a guy at Harvard that takes specially prepared liquid food and vaporizes it. The vapor gets captured in the weird bowl thing in the picture above, and then you can huff it through a glass straw. Laura Powell from the Daily Mail took a few whafs of a lemon tart and describes the experience thusly: At first, my mouth feels warm and dry; then, as the droplets in the smoke settle, I can make out the particular flavours. 'Hardly any calories' means that 10 minutes of whaffing is only good for about 200 calories, so it might be a good way of enjoying potentially excessive amounts of dessert without paying for it as long as you don't care about texture. Look for individual Le Whaf units to go on sale this fall for about $135.
Daily Mail, via Jezebel. Pepsi and Competitors Scramble as Soda Sales Drop. Eric Draper for The New York Times Rufina Cowboy removes weeds in the community garden near her home in Cuba, N.M. With her doctor's help, Ms. Cowboy realized that sugar from soda was contributing to her weight gain, and she now drinks mostly water. “We’re not trying to be the pop police or anything, but we felt like we were sending a mixed message by having a healthy lunch program and yet letting everyone walk around with sodas with a bunch of sugar in them,” said Joel Price, superintendent of the district. Although schools have been removing sodas and other sugary drinks from vending machines for the last few years, the Faulkton district is one of the first in the country to institute a ban, according to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which works to reduce childhood . Cold, bubbly, sweet soda, long the American Champagne, is becoming product non grata in more places these days.
“The question is, Are we seeing a modest, multiyear decline that will bottom out? But Ms. For Them, a Great Meal Tops Good Intentions. Supporting local agriculture and food traditions? Far too narrow a goal, they said. Chefs’ obligation to help save the planet? A lofty idea, they agreed, but the priority is creating great, brilliant food. “With the relatively small number of people I feed, is it really my responsibility to worry about carbon footprint?” Mr. Keller asked. The two men were at Per Se, Mr. Mr. And though his bearing is modest, at 41 he is already one of the leaders of Spain’s cocina vanguardia, as the chef and owner of the rustic Mugaritz, outside San Sebastián in the Basque country. “Each plate seems natural and effortless, but each ingredient is somehow more delicious and beautiful than you have ever seen it before,” said Wylie Dufresne, the chef at WD-50 in New York.
Mr. Both he and Mr. “What restaurant isn’t farm to table?” When it comes to supporting communities, he said, he chooses to support Stonington, Me., by buying exquisite oysters from a seafood dealer there. Mr. Peter Kaminsky's Culinary Intelligence at Epicurious. P eter Kaminsky is no stranger to good eating. He's written cookbooks with Gray Kunz, Daniel Boulud, John Madden, and, new in May 2012, Adam Perry Lang. He worked for four years as a food critic for New York magazine and dissected the art of Argentine grilling with Francis Mallmann in the 2010 James Beard Award–winner Seven Fires. Somewhere along the way, his waistline began to reflect his life of wide-ranging gastronomic adventure. After his doctor warned of diabetes and a life-insurance agent turned him down for a policy, Kaminsky decided to change his approach to eating. Epicurious: Culinary intelligence, as you term it, works on the idea of maximizing "flavor per calorie.
" Peter Kaminsky: If you use ingredients that are at their peak of flavor, then you will get satisfaction from them. If you use tomatoes in February or strawberries in April or squash six months later or commodity beef, they're not going to have as much full flavor as seasonal, carefully raised ingredients. Massive Health. We’ll See Your Cheeseburger Stuffed Crust Pizza and Raise You. Just when you thought the world’s pizzamongers couldn’t pack any more mind-boggling ingredients into a pizza crust, they did. Pizza Hut Middle East has just introduced their latest heart attack on a plate, the “Crown Crust Cheeseburger Pizza.” It’s actually fairly impressive. In a few short years, our gastric masterminds have gone from “hey, let’s stuff a pizza crust with cheese” to “hey, let’s stuff a pizza crust with hot dogs” to “hey, isn’t this what the Mayans warned us about?”
Their piece de resistance, the Crown Crust Pizza features entire cheeseburgers set around the outside of the pie, acting as “gems” around the “crown.” For the more health-conscious, to use the loosest possible definition of that term, there’s a chicken fillet version, slathered in barbecue sauce and green peppers. The original incarnation of the Crown Crust Pizza, Eater reports, first congealed in 2010, and featured alternating “gems” of meatballs and Philadelphia cream cheese balls stuffed in the crust. Pizza Hut's Crown Crust Pizza. In an apparent on-going effort to fatten up the rest of the world American-style, Pizza Hut — which just released a pizza with hot dogs stuffed inside the crust in the UK — is now offering a cheeseburger crust pizza in the Middle East.
Yes, this culinary abomination — called the “Crown Crust Pizza” — is no joke, and it has an equally appalling companion: a chicken nugget crust pizza. No wonder the Middle East hates America. Reports Eater: For starters, you have your choice of not one but two separate junk food items to have shoved into your pizza crust: cheeseburgers or chicken fillets.Secondly, the toppings on the main part of the pizza are themed with the crust — so burger toppings on the cheeseburger crust, complete with special sauce, and barbecue sauce and green peppers on the chicken one. Here are the official rollout videos… We’re at the point where American fast food companies are immune to parody because they’ve effectively become a parody of themselves.
Your move, Papa John’s. What Pizza Hut's Crown Crust Pizza Says About Global Fast Food Marketing : The Salt. Perhaps you've heard by now of the Crown Crust pizza, the pizza-cheeseburger hybrid recently unveiled by some of Pizza Hut's international franchisees. Available only at Pizza Hut Middle East, this fast food chimera features a vaguely crown-shaped crust studded with "cheeseburger gems," topped with lettuce and tomato, and drizzled with "special sauce. " Many foodies have decried it as a "culinary abomination," "a sign of the apocalypse," or proof that America is finally losing its monopoly on gluttony. A reviewer at Serious Eats, who tried the Crown Crust in Dubai, wrote: "There seems to be no rational explanation as to why this pizza was created. " But Leila Hudson, director of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, and a restaurateur herself, says the Crown Crust probably looks a lot less bizarre to Middle Eastern consumers than it does to us.
It's actually pretty similar to the way ethnic cuisine is marketed to the U.S., Hudson tells The Salt. Links for the First Half of May. 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). Effluents from fish (and their food) accumulate in the 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. What's for dinner? Just check the spectrometer. The IPMS spectrometer could one day be integrated into smartphones (Photo: Fraunhofer IPMS) Foodies who've ever dreamed of having superhero-style vision that could analyze what they are about to eat should keep an eye on the upcoming Sensor+Trade fair in Nuremberg. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute of Photonic Microsystems (IPMS) will be exhibiting a tiny prototype spectrometer that can measure factors such as water and protein level in foods, meaning you won't make the mistake of buying fruit that looks good on the outside but is rotten at its core.
The micro electromechanical system (MEMS) spectrometer can probe under the surface of any food type, even when it is enveloped in thin packaging film. The user points it at a piece of fruit, for example, and it reflects back a spectrum of infrared light that the system analyses by comparing it with information stored in a database. “We expect spectrometers to develop in the same way that digital cameras did,” says Dr. About the Author. Catering to Caviar Tastes From an Unexpected Place. Earth to Portlandia: Backyard Goats and Chickens Filling Up Animal Sanctuaries | FarmPlate. When does backyard gardening turn into backyard farming? Around the time when well-meaning folks decide to supplement their vegetable patch with some laying hens, or else maybe some chickens or a goat or two. Though that kind of arrangement undoubtedly works well for some, others are finding that their urban or suburban locale doesn’t make for very convenient animal husbandry. According to a recent piece in E – The Environmental Magazine, that’s resulted in a growing incidence of animal abandonment, with sanctuaries from Upstate New York to Oregon overburdened with chickens and goats.
Municipal animal shelters typically aren’t equipped to care for livestock, so these well-meaning animal sanctuaries, particularly in rural areas, are filling up with roosters and other unruly critters. Though we at FarmPlate don’t discourage backyard farming for the truly committed, we do acknowledge that some food-producing activities can be best left to the professionals. Read more here > Food Deserts Not to Blame for Obesity and Poor Nutrition. UPDATE February 2012 — The Food Crises: Predictive validation of a quantitative model of food prices including speculators and ethanol conversion. In Hawaii, 40-square-miles and many tough choices. Wendell Berry Quotes (Author of Jayber Crow) Urban Farming. Can Coffee Kick-Start an Economy? How to design more resilient, food producing systems (without money and fossil fuels) Regional food analysis. Indian Engineers Build A Stronger Society With School Lunch Program : The Salt.
Capsule removes radioactive substances from beverages. Bees’ Decline Linked to Pesticides, Studies Find. Bluetooth-enabled magnet orders pizza at the push of a button. » Future food for thought. Scottish Salmon start seaweed trials - News. About « Fruit City. Calories to be cut by major food and drink companies. Budget 2012: Cornish pasty price rise fears. Huge shift in what we eat. Future_of_food_report_2011_lr.