TEA QUALITY-GENOTYPE VS ENVIRONMENT

Quality of tea is invariably associated with the region where it is grown. Higher the altitude of the growing region, better should be the drinking quality of the tea. It is true that the genetic profiles of different varieties of plants within a species have a profound influence on the quality of the end product but a particular variety with a specific genetic profile need not give same quality products if grown under different conditions. This has been brought out in the case of tea by researchers recently.

"The results showed significant differences in the quality of the plain tea produced among the varying locations of production. A closer look further indicated that the changes in the tea were not systematic, because the same genotype reflected different changes in different regions. The study led the team to conclude: "A genotype selected in one site for high quality may not retain the relative quality over other genotypes in new areas. It is necessary to test genotypes in new areas of production to fully evaluate their relative quality potentials."

Probably such an endowment can be a restraint for smuggling seed materials across the borders since there is no guarantee that these seeds will produce same quality products when grown out side the country from where they have been taken out. of course the advent of IP rights regime for Geographical Indications, many unique plant materials have got recognition, making trans-border transplantation a bit more difficult.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/

http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

"MEAT FREE DAY"-CAN IT REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING?

Man became a carnivorous creature due to the accident of evolution, though he is not designed to hunt or eat animals. With affluence contributing to a life style based on meat rich diet, food animals became a resource for commercialized industry. To day one can see organized farms that churn out designer animals like cows for beef, pigs for bacon, poultry birds for egg and white meat, turkey birds, shrimps and fish to meet the increasing demands from the affluent consumers who can afford to consume them every day. It is another matter that such a life style also contributed to many health disorders of serious nature. To add to this distortion, intensive farming also contributed to environmental degradation and global warming affecting the very basis of food production. This realization is persuading many denizens to shun meat consumption at least partially, if not in toto.

"By making a simple change in the way you eat, you are taking part in a world changing campaign where what's good for you is also good for the planet," the former Beatle told the Parliament Magazine. "Having one designated meat-free day a week is a meaningful change that everyone can make," he said. "Above all, remember that the future begins with the actions we take now."McCartney is fitting his campaign in Brussels for a "Meat-free Monday" into a European concert tour which starts Wednesday in the German city of Hamburg, where the Beatles began building their fame in the early 1960s.McCartney, a longtime environmental campaigner, told the EU magazine that there is "clear" evidence that meat production is "major contributor" to climate change.World leaders at the upcoming Copenhagen summit on climate change should regard a sustainable food policy as a key part of the fight to curb CO2 emissions, he said."A lower-meat diet could see greenhouse gases reduced by as much as 80 per cent," he said."Western countries currently eat meat at least seven times a week, but using a series of projected world diets, latest reports recommend reducing that to twice or three times a week."Joining McCartney in Brussels will be Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change, and Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur for the right to food.

Relating what is being practiced within the house hold to the potential disaster that awaits the planet if the present trend continues is a difficult task and involvement of reputed personalia can be expected to lend the campaign some respectability and credibility. Meat eating can be a habit forming practice and it requires tremendous will power and firm conviction to shun meat consumption even if it is for just a day in a week. Strong survival instinct of the man may still save this planet and it is a question of time before man adjusts to a world without meat.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD SAFETY COOPERATION-SOUTH ASIAN MODEL

Chinese Food Industry seems to be at cross roads after the notorious melamine tainted baby food scandal which affected thousands of children in the form of kidney failure. It is another matter that two of the culprits identified for the tragedy were mercilessly executed to provide a lesson and deterrent to future adulterators. Realizing the damage this has caused to the image of the country and future food exports, Chines government is going out of the way to woo neighboring countries through safety assurance cooperative pacts.

"Health ministers from the three countries signed the accord in Tokyo. The food safety memorandum was inked following the contamination scandal last year involving Chinese dumplings. Under the deal, the three nations agreed to notify each other immediately if a food safety problem surfaces and to clarify the process of investigation, said a joint statement. The Japanese are still pressing Chinese authorities to investigate the January 2008 incidents involving pesticide-tainted frozen dumplings. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has supported closer ties with China but has also stressed that concerns over the safety of imported Chinese food were an "obstacle" between the nations".

Such cooperative agreements will go a long way to reassure the importing countries about the seriousness and intent of exporting countries in safeguarding the health of the consumers in the importing countries. In stead of such limited cooperative agreements, it is time that members of United Nations come together to evolve a common platform or protocol that can be used to resolve quality and safety issues as and when they crop up amongst the trading nations. Food safety is no more a national issue but transcends boundaries affecting the whole world.

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

PET FOODS-DOES THE INDUSTRY CARE?

In spite of the yeoman service being rendered by NGOs like SPCA, Blue Cross Society, CUPA, Beauty without Cruelty, PFA etc, dedicated to animal welfare, pet food industry in India looks like an orphaned sector with the manufacturers having a free run, unchecked and uncontrolled. They are a law unto themselves leaving millions of pet owners at their mercy. There are no standards, no reasonableness regarding pricing and no accountability for peddling unsafe foods to the unwary pet owners. This is in sharp contrast to the overseeing system in the US where defective products are even recalled once safety questions arise.

"It is reported that, since April 2009, four major pet food companies in the US had to recall their products. inadequate overseeing may be the major reason why safety aspect is being disregarded and growing pet supply sales seems to be further incentive for the pet food companies to focus solely on making money rather than keeping pets healthy. The pet supply distribution in the US has reached a staggering $4.2 billion last year".

Though there are no reliable statistics regarding number of pets being maintained in India, some scattered reports place them at 25 million dogs, the dog to man ratio being 1:40. Though many house holds do maintain cats, most of them being free roaming types, with hardly any foods served to them inside the house, except for milk. In the case of dogs in India, unlike those in the US, where more than 70 million house holds maintain pet dogs under license from the local civic authorities, 80% of dogs are of feral type or more commonly known as street dogs with no restraint on their movements. Only a very small percentage comes under the restricted and supervised category and only these dogs form the clientele for the pet food industry. It is time the pet food industry takes these valued clients into confidence for its very survival.

There are only a few manufacturers of pet foods in India and mostly they are confined to dog foods. Slaughter house waste, with doubtful quality and safety is used extensively in these products and quality control is more conspicuous by its absence. Probably adequate efforts are not made by the organized pet food industry to promote its products and generate good business volume. Unfortunately there seems to be an impression in the industry that pet owners are rich enough to pay any price as evidenced by a spate of high cost imported foods in the Indian market and the only one local manufacturer, offering 2-3 varieties of pet foods, has the monopoly, with absolute freedom for manipulating the price and the pack size. Practically no R & D takes place on nutrition, toxicology, health and formulation of pet foods. Probably FSSAI can step into this vacuum providing guidelines for this industry for putting some science into their products!
.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD INSECURITY IN THE LAND OF "PLENTY"

The common perception that "Grass is greener on the other side" is the greatest gullibility of human race, probably because man is an ambitious animal with thinking power that enables him to discriminate between 'good' and 'better'. The unending rush to western countries by educated youngsters is also driven by the same perception that affluent countries are better than India in terms of opportunities for education, employment and leading quality life. USA, the land of plenty can also be vulnerable to food insecurity is borne out by the recent statistics about the hunger status in that country.

"Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2008, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.6 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food".

It is another matter that the yardstick used for measuring food security is more stringent as compared to that being followed in developing countries an if same is applied to these countries probably more that 60% of population face some form of food insecurity. If no distinction is made between calorie adequacy and nutritional adequacy, probably food insecurity may not be a real problem. In a country like India, with a per capita annual income of Rs 35000 and the operation of National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme assuring Rs 100 per day for rural folks during non-agricultural season, sufficient quantity of cereals can be purchased to stave off hunger and meet the calorie needs.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

BIOTECHNOLOGY CROPS-"THIRST" FOR HERBICIDES

One of the avowed objectives of evolving new crop varieties through biotechnology intervention is to reduce use of chemicals for crop protection. Thanks to the innovative efforts of biotechnologist many GM crops have been able to thrive without use of chemical insecticides. Unfortunately reduction in the use of pesticides was more than offset by increased use of herbicides in the cultivation of GM crops. The statistics of chemical application so meticulously compiled in the US can give a clue as to the flip side of GM technology. ,

"The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008. The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS). The groups said that while herbicide use has climbed, insecticide use has dropped because of biotech crops. They said adoption of genetically engineered corn and cotton that carry traits resistant to insects has led to a reduction in insecticide use by 64 million pounds since 1996.Still, that leaves a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use".

The findings reinforce the feeling that when it comes to changing agricultural practices, a holistic approach can only provide the right answer whether such changes have a better risk-benefit ratio in the long run. Some of the herbicides are more dangerous than the traditional pesticides and what long term risks these new chemicals, present as residues in the crops, pose for the health of the farmers and the consumers is yet to be ascertained.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

TURNING "JUNK" TO "GOLD"?- THE NEW ALCHEMISTS

In a move to improve the image of the industry, conscious attempts are being made to improve the health aspect of processed foods without affecting the attractiveness of the products to the consumer. This is an area worthy of cooperative efforts between academic researchers and market driven industry managers. Issues like high fat, high sugar, high calories, high salt, lack of dietary fiber are haunting the industry and it is time now for the two creative stake holders to come together to modify many of the popular existing food products to incorporate positive health features without adversely affecting their organoleptic quality too drastically. The future of food industry lies here.

"Every year scientists are given huge amounts of money by the larger corporations to find ways in which junk food can be turned into healthier junk food. The corporations have no option because the junk they created is destroying health to such a massive extent that the economy is paying for it in ways that nobody ever would have imagined. Since this food has an almost cult like following and many families actually live on the stuff, action had to be taken before some clever lawyer discovers a new reason to institute a class action that could potentially destroy big business or, at least, let it hemorrhage badly".

The tobacco class action episode cannot be easily forgotten when the industry had to fork out billions of dollars towards damage to consumers who were affected by cigarette smoking. It is possible that same can happen to food industry also one day for peddling unhealthy foods knowing pretty well that their consumption can lead to obesity, CVD, blood pressure, kidney diseases etc. It is better late than never!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com