Finally, Fake Chicken Worth Eating. Indoor farm in Brooklyn helps feed hundreds of families. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, an increasingly hip but historically low-income Brooklyn neighborhood, one food pantry is also an indoor farm. The New York Daily News visited the Child Development Support Corporation, where every Thursday morning clients harvest lettuce, bok choy, and collard greens that help feed hundreds of families.
Right now the greens are all grown hydroponically indoors, but the farm has plans to expand, adding a rooftop garden with cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. It will also be offering hydroponics workshops and cooking demos. The idea’s spreading to other social service agencies in the city, too. Providing basic fresh veggies isn’t too complicated; staffers simply hadn’t considered it before. It was news to Los Sures pantry manager Robin Sirota that the windowless basement housing the South 3rd St. pantry was a suitable setting for growing salad greens.
Turns out the two are not mutually exclusive. We Forage. Street food boom towns: Three West Coast case studies. In Portland, food carts fill a parking lot with lines stretching onto the sidewalk. (Photo by camknows.) Whatever you’re craving, you can probably find it on sale in a parking lot in Portland. From barbecued jackfruit pie, to foie gras over potato chips and kimchi quesadillas, it’s no coincidence Portland has been heralded as a world-class purveyor of street food. Street food is smart for sustainability: It makes urban living more desirable to many, improves neighborhood walkability, provides affordable dining options, and opens doors for diverse entrepreneurs (many of whom also see sustainably produced ingredients as key). Let’s compare and contrast these three West Coast cities’ approaches to street food: Portland: ground zero Street food in the Rose City traces its roots back to the 1970s, but it really started heating up a few years ago when the economic downturn dovetailed with the city’s reputation as a foodie mecca.
Still, Portland vendors continue to push the limits. Hungry yet? The Union Street Urban Orchard. Forage Restaurant Opens | Los Angeles. Inside the pantry, out in the yard, wearing a brown paper bag: Your next meal’s been playing hide and seek. Game over. Forage is open. Find the sunny, white-walled, and wood-benched spot’s menu on the blackboard overhead. Nab brioche galettes and minicakes fresh out of the oven to pair with Blue Bottle Coffee, drip-brewed by the cup. Fill up on market-driven veggie sides from dilly beets to smashed roast potatoes or hearty plates of braised meatballs with grilled bread or avocado on a crusty baguette with cabbage, tomato, and fennel pickles (pork belly comes the same way).
In line with his local and sustainable ways, chef Jason Kim (last seen as sous chef at Lucques) will take whatever’s growing in your garden (or on that one odd kumquat tree), fix it up, and add it to the offerings of the day. The kitchen’s currently looking for citrus fruits, if you’re holding. C’mon, don’t play hard to get. Www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/ResolvingFoodCrisis.pdf. Malnutrition needs UK national strategy. 70% of those admitted to hospital while malnourished are even less well nourished when they leave According to Dr Elizabeth Weekes, from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London, widespread attention on the so-called obesity epidemic was overshadowing the fact that 3M people in the UK were either malnourished, or at severe risk of malnutrition, at any time. One million of those are over 65 years old and 400,000 of them live in London.
The problem is more likely to be experienced in deprived areas and it is likely that “far more people are malnourished now than they were 10 years ago” due to the economic climate and government welfare cuts. Don’t recognise a problem “The problem we have in the UK is that people don’t recognise we have a problem [with nutrition] or, if they do think we have a problem, they think it is about obesity.
More malnourished when they left. Rapid rise of Asian middle class to revamp global food systems | U.S. Grains Council - Tukwila Reporter. The sophisticated food demands of newly affluent consumers in China and other developing nations are likely to cause major change in U.S. farming and food production, Asian food policy and world trade, according to Food 2040, a new study of emerging food trends in Asia by the U.S. Grains Council (USGC).
USGC President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas C. Dorr presented a preview of Food 2040 today at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual Agricultural Outlook Forum. “Growing affluence in China could change people’s diets and the global food system. Consumers will expect more choice, quality, convenience and safety in their food purchases,” Dorr said. Food 2040 also reveals important implications for agricultural trade policy between the United States and Asian nations. U.S. attitudes about feeding the world are likely to change too. The U.S. Food 2040 outlines the following possibilities for significant change in the global food system. Parents back pre-watershed junk food advertising ban. 7 March 2012Last updated at 03:29 By Katherine Sellgren BBC News education reporter The Children's Food Trust says parents need more help to discourage unhealthy eating habits Many parents would like to see a ban on the advertising of unhealthy foods and sugary snacks before the 2100 watershed, a survey suggests.
The poll of more than 1,000 parents found more than half thought adverts for junk food made it harder for them to give their children healthy diets. The survey, commissioned by the Children's Food Trust, found many parents felt pestered to buy poor food. The majority (69%) admitted they could do more to promote a healthy diet. Two-thirds (65%) of the 1,015 parents surveyed said there should be a ban on television advertising of products which were high in fat, sugar or salt before 2100.
This should be regardless of whether the programming was aimed at children or adults, they said. Almost half (45%) admitted that they let their children influence them when buying food for the family. Sun-dried tomatoes linked to hepatitis A outbreak. 5 March 2012Last updated at 11:21 GMT Four of the seven infected people had consumed sun-dried tomatoes UK health experts believe sun-dried tomatoes could be the cause of a recent outbreak of hepatitis A.
The Health Protection Agency and the Food Standards Agency fear contaminated samples were to blame for the infection that hospitalised four people and caused illness in another three people in late 2011. Hepatitis A virus is carried by human faeces and can be passed on through contact with food or water. Severe cases can lead to liver failure. All of the seven people infected have since made a recovery. One of the strains of hepatitis A identified in two of the patients was identical to a strain that caused a similar outbreak linked with sun-dried tomatoes in the Netherlands in 2010, says a report. Four of the patients in this latest outbreak in England said they had consumed sun-dried tomatoes. Continue reading the main story Hepatitis Officials are on the alert for further cases. In The Future, You Will Eat Your Food Packaging, And It Will Be Delicious.
Here’s a solution to our ever-growing plastic problem: package food and beverage items in edible packaging that’s actually good enough to eat. Dr. David Edwards, a professor at Harvard, is working on it. After creating Breathable Foods and an energy capsule, Edwards moved on to WikiCells, an edible packaging technology. The WikiCells project began a few years ago when Edwards collaborated with French designer François Azambourg on an edible bottle that uses nature’s "natural packaging" as an inspiration for more artificial packaging. Says Edwards: "The notion [of Wikicells] is that you are englobing liquid, foam, or something else in a soft membrane held together by food particles that are being connected by electrostatic charges to each other and to a small amount of natural polymer.
" "You can imagine that the yogurt will have a fruity kind of membrane. The hygiene of edible packaging is, of course, also an issue. Edible Packaging Lets You Drink A Beverage & Eat The Bottle Too. Dr. David Edwards, a professor at Harvard University, is working on the WikiCells project that looks into creating edible packaging. A few years ago, Edwards collaborated with French designer François Azambourg on an edible bottle that’s made from organic materials and is biodegradable. These WikiCell membranes can hold the drink together and could also be consumed afterwards. These membranes could be made out of something tasty, like chocolate or candy. If you wish to try some of Edwards experimental edible packaging, you can sample them at the Lab Store Paris. Lab Store Paris. Muji Creates Design Exhibit On How To Use Less Packaging.
Prompted by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan a year ago, Japanese retailer Muji is hosting an exhibit at the London Design Museum that rethinks how design impacts the way we use energy. Product Fitness 80 reconsiders what makes good product design. We constantly question if we have used excessive materials; whether products are overpackaged, or are their sizes and weights too much; can we reduce waste in the ordering, manufacturing or transportation of products? Less is more. The products on display address the question “What would happen if we used 20% less materials and energy in the actual process of making products?”
And they also consider the role of the user in customizing, re-using and recycling products in order to reduce energy consumption. The Product Fitness 80 exhibition runs from March 9th-18th. Product Fitness 80. Growing Plants in the Dark. While sunlight contains all colors, the dominant type of chlorophyll in plants only needs purple light to function. This simple fact has big implications for the future of farming. Crops planted in soil, of course, depend on the sun, while commercial greenhouses use white light to grow their crops. All that extra red, green and yellow energy is wasted on the plants. PlantLab has taken advantage of chlorophyll’s little quirk. By using red and blue LEDs to create purple light, they have dramatically cut the energy needed to grow plants indoors. The special lights boost the efficiency of photosynthesis from 9% to between 12 and 15%. Growing plants in a closed system conserves heat, water, and nutrients, and cuts the need for pesticides.
Watch the introductory video here. Lab-grown meat is first step to artificial hamburger. 19 February 2012Last updated at 15:29 ET By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News, Vancouver The first strips of muscle have been grown in a project to develop a new way to produce meat Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year. The aim of the research is to develop a more efficient way of producing meat than rearing animals. At a major science meeting in Canada, Prof Mark Post said synthetic meat could reduce the environmental footprint of meat by up to 60%. "We would gain a tremendous amount in terms of resources," he said. Professor Post's group at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has grown small pieces of muscle about 2cm long, 1cm wide and about a mm thick.
They are off-white and resemble strips of calamari in appearance. At a news conference, Prof Post said he was even planning to ask celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal to cook it. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote. 2012 Food Trends Get Technical. Speculation on 2012′s food trends are everywhere, from the newest “ethnic flavors” to the next super berry. But more interesting are the ways experts see technology playing a role in the food industry and how it will help consumers in the marketplace. Over the past few weeks, Food+Tech Connect analyzed three important food+tech trends of 2011 and made predictions for 2012 about the evolution of recipe websites and publishing, the huge opportunities for technology in small scale meat production and distribution, and the drive to know more about where food comes from. Phil Lempert, CEO of The Lempert Report and known as the “Supermarket Guru,” also created an insightful and relevant list of predictions for 2012.
Below is a summary and analysis of some of his ideas (#3 is missing, for example, as it was not directly tech related). To read his article in its entirety, see 2012 Food Trends to Watch. Trend #1 - Food Prices Trend #2 – Never Eat Alone Again We agree with Lempert’s prediction. Trends: Flavor Trends for 2012. The combination of the latest economic roller coaster and the directly opposing forces of indulgent eating and demands for healthier offerings turned the art of predicting food & beverage trends into a bigger challenge than ever. So it's helpful to frame the problem within the greater context of general trends that will impact the food & beverage market in the coming year. Last fall, Innova Market Insight identified 10 key trends that will underlie consumer choices in 2012.
And while this list represents a great deal of dedicated research, it's possible to sum up the high points in a few sentences: Consumers are getting older but want to feel younger. They're attracted to "pure," "natural" foods that are premium in quality yet within their (much tighter) budget. Also, consumers want to "buy green" and local when possible. There will be some niche markets that are hard to measure, such as gluten-free. "Even discounters are now looking for high quality products," he continues. Food Trends: Innova Market Insights Announces Top 10 Food Trends for 2012. Innova Market Insights identified 10 key trends to impact the food and beverage market through 2012 and beyond. The top trends relate to purity, authenticity and sustainability, as consumers continue to look for products with added value, despite the ongoing economic uncertainty.
Innova Market Insights presented the trends during a webcast on November 23. The trends for 2012 are: "Pure" is the New Natural. Natural products are becoming the rule rather than the exception in most western markets, despite ongoing issues with a clear definition of what "natural" encompasses.
F&B Trends in 2012. 2012 Manufacturing Trends Survey: Can Production This Year Top 2011? Cassava 'offers climate change hope' for Africa. Cassava - big business in South Sudan. News: UK researchers aim to breed Campylobacter-resistant chickens. £1.3m to breed campy-resistant chickens - 2/16. Wendell E. Berry Lecture. Why you might want to look a bit closer at what you're eating. Food. WikiCell bottles are food containers that you can eat.