Stifling innovation-How can governments indulge in such unethical activities?

Ever heard of the term infanticide? That is sacrificing one's own child, whatever be the reason. Why should a parent commit infanticide? Is it because of the potential for the child to become more famous than the parent? Whatever be the reason it is ridiculous that such things happen in real life. Innovations are like children and scientists creating them are like parents to them. Like every parent, innovators also want their findings to be of benefit to the society. But in a quixotic development in the US, the very government which professes its strong commitment to science and technology is reported to have made attempts to "kill" a novel food product developed by a "daring" entrepreneur, through unfair means though there is no explanation forthcoming from the concerned authorities as to why they did it. The case pertains to the successful development of a product by a start up venture that can replicate the taste and other parameters associated with natural egg from poultry birds, based on alternate formulation not involving real eggs. The new product had all the desirable qualities associated with natural egg and could have saved millions of consumer dollars because it was cheaper and healthier than the real egg. Here is a take on this unusual action on the part of US government agencies vested with the responsibility of providing wholesome food to its citizens.   

"A US government-appointed agricultural body tried to crush a Silicon Valley food startup after concluding the company represented a "major threat" and "crisis" for the $5.5bn-a-year egg industry,according to documents obtained by the Guardian. In potential conflict with rules that govern how it can spend its funds, the American Egg Board (AEB) lobbied for a concerted attack on Hampton Creek, a food company that has created a low-cost plant-based egg replacement and the maker of Just Mayo, a mayonnaise alternative. In a series of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (Foia), AEB staff, a US department of agriculture official and egg industry executives attempted to orchestrate the attack. The documents were obtained by Ryan Shapiro, a Foia expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Shapiro's Washington DC-based Foia-specialist attorney, Jeffrey Light, and passed to Hampton Creek.Just Mayo is just not mayo: FDA says eggless mayonnaise must change name. Among the efforts coordinated between the AEB, the USDA and the egg industry:
    * Outgoing AEB head Joanne Ivy advised Unilever on how to proceed against Hampton Creek after the food giant filed a false advertising lawsuit against its rival last year.
    * The Department of Agriculture's national supervisor of shell eggs joined the AEB in its attack on Hampton Creek, suggesting Ivy contact the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) directly about Just Mayo with her concerns. The FDA later ruled Just Mayo must change its name.
    * The AEB attempted to have Just Mayo blocked from Whole Foods, asking Anthony Zolezzi, a partner at private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors and self-described "eco-entrepreneur", to use his influence with Whole Foods to drop the product. (Whole Foods still sells Just Mayo.)
    * More than one member of the AEB made joking threats of violence against Hampton Creek's founder, Josh Tetrick. "Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?" asked Mike Sencer, executive vice-president of AEB member organization Hidden Villa Ranch. Mitch Kanter, executive vice-president of the AEB, jokingly offered "to contact some of my old buddies in Brooklyn to pay Mr. Tetrick a visit".
    * The AEB's research arm, the Egg Nutrition Center (ENC), tested the strength of Hampton Creek's patent for its egg replacer, Beyond Eggs, using a consultant, Gilbert Leveille. Leveille concluded that the patent was "not very strong and could be easily challenged with an alternate product", he said in an email to Kanter. "Were I in your position I would focus on nutritional quality and on the emerging science, much of which ENC has sponsored," Leveille wrote.
The emails, totalling 600 pages, show the AEB has become deeply concerned about Hampton Creek. The San Francisco-based tech company has attracted $120m in funding from some of tech's biggest names, including the Founders Fund, started by Facebook backer Peter Thiel, and Vinod Khosla's Khosla Ventures.

The AEB represents egg farmers across the US and its board is selected by the secretary of agriculture. This year the politically connected AEB provided 14,000 eggs for the White House's annual Easter egg roll and Ivy was photographed with President Barack Obama"

It is matter of shame for the wealthiest country on earth to adopt unfair means to subdue a new entrepreneur in the narrow interest of protecting the fortunes of the natural egg industry. The argument that encouraging strong competition to the natural egg might adversely impact the poultry industry resulting in loss of employment to a few people will not jell because establishment of a new industry that caters to the same market will also provide employment, thus becoming an employment neutral development. What is forgotten in this debate is that the formulated egg products are much more healthier than their natural counterpart in terms of lower cholesterol and other adverse health parameters. It is a curse for this country that most law makers are lobbyists for one industry or the other because of the political donations they receive which the Federal court had made legal. However these law makers are forgetting that their primary responsibility is to the voters who elected them rather than the lobbyists, reposing trust and confidence on their ethical credentials, integrity and seriousness to address the issues affecting them.

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

Chickens want to roost!-Poultry industry does not allow!

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" can be a very comfortable way of living, provided you do not have some thing called conscience! The fact that the world harbors a large number of carnivorous and omnivorous human beings cannot be denied and plant eating population is relatively a minority, We have to live with the custom of killing other animals to meet the insatiable desire for meat foods. Vow, how do we go about it! The inherent demand and potential new demand for chicken meat and related products can be met only by the so called industrial poultry farming where millions of birds are raised under conditions that cannot be called totally acceptable to the conscience of man. There are millions of poultry farms across the world which produce chicken carcasses that is the basis of a roaring international trade. From time to time cases of meat contamination and food poisoning are reported involving large number of recalls from the market. Most consumers are under the impression that chicken preparations they consume whether at home or in eateries come from hospital-like, clean, hygienic farm facilities where the birds enjoy a luxurious comfortable life! Unfortunately the truth is some thing else as revealed by a recent expose which is nauseating and abominable to say the least.  Look at the report more carefully and see whether you can resist throwing up, after watching the scenes in a typical poultry farm in the US.

"Most shocking is that the bellies of nearly all the chickens have lost their feathers and are raw, angry, red flesh. The entire underside of almost every chicken is a huge, continuous bedsore. As a farm boy who raised small flocks of chickens and geese, I never saw anything like that. One reason seems to be modern breeding: Chickens are now bred to have huge breasts, and they often end up too heavy for their legs. Poultry Science journal has calculated that if humans grew at the same rate as modern chickens, a human would weigh 660 pounds by the age of eight weeks. These chickens don't run around or roost as birds normally do. They stagger a few steps, often on misshapen legs, and then collapse onto the excrement of tens of thousands of previous birds. It is laden with stinging ammonia that seems to eat away at feathers and skin. I called Perdue to see what the company had to say. Jim Perdue declined to comment, but a company spokeswoman, Julie DeYoung, agreed that undersides of chickens shouldn't be weeping red. She suggested that the operator was probably mismanaging the chicken house. That doesn't go over well with Watts, whose family has owned the farm since the 1700s and says he has been raising chickens for Perdue since 1992, meticulously following its requirements. As Watts sees it, Perdue realized that consumers were concerned about animal welfare and food safety, and decided to manipulate the public. The claim about the chickens being raised "cage free" is misleading because birds raised for meat are not in cages. It's egg-laying chickens that are caged, not the ones we eat. So "cage free" is meaningful for eggs but not for chicken meat. Moreover, Perdue's chickens are crammed so tightly in barns that they might as well be in cages. Each bird on the Watts farm gets just two-thirds of a square foot. So why is our government giving its seal of approval to these methods as humane, in ways that seem to mislead consumers? "U.S.D.A. is the accomplice of Perdue in the fooling of consumers," says Leah Garces, American director of Compassion in World Farming, who calls it a marketing scam."

the tragedy is further compounded by the tacit recognition of this by the authorities who are supposed to prevent such animal abuses. Though animal activists and scientific community frown at these malpractices, nothing much is happening to take to task such powerful farmer lobby which is a law unto themselves with no accountability to the feelings and welfare of the consumers who form their "bread and butter". To add insult to injury the industry is brazen enough to proclaim on the product labels that their products are made from birds raised in a humane way!. Greediness for maximizing their profits through increased productivity per farm and minimizing their input cost drive most poultry farmers to use a variety of techniques and chemicals to torture the birds to increase their body weight. If the same techniques are used in man, he will be as heavy as 300 kg within 8 weeks, so say some experts! Every chicken meat consumer must introspect and decide whether he wants to eat meat from such birds! 

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

THE NEW SALMONELLA BUSTER-WILL IT IMPROVE FOOD SAFETY?

America is a country which can be cursed or admired depending on the yardstick one uses. When food safety and healthy foods are concerned, this country has a despicable record though this is not due to the scientific inertia or insensitivity by the scientists to the sufferings of the consumer but due to the attitude of its politicians who are all prisoners of the food industry lobbyists spending millions of dollars to curry favor with them. But scientists as a group are highly innovative bringing out novel findings and new technologies regularly whether for manufacturing or safety assessment. No wonder most of the Nobel laureates hail  from the US during the last few decades. The Netherlands appears to have taken a lead on the US recently by finding an effective solution to the emergence of dangerous pathogens which have much higher damage potential due to their ability to circumvent the lethal effect of most of the antibiotics presently in the armory of the physicians. The so called antibiotic resistance developed by a few disease causing bacteria is the greatest threat to humanity and with the development of a bacteriophage based treatment protocol, primarily for the meat industry which by far is the biggest user of antibiotics at present. here is a take on this new development which has far reaching implications vis-a-vis humans.  

"The FDA and US Department of Agriculture have approved a food processing aid against Salmonella, according to a press release. The additive, called Salmonelex, uses natural phages to eliminate the bacteria. Salmonelex is produced by Micreos of the Netherlands and will be used by poultry processors in the United States beginning in January. "Now that the FDA and USDA have given the green light we can offer food processors a new and natural solution against Salmonella, including antibiotic resistant strains," saidMark Offerhaus, CEO of Micreos. "Salmonelex is seen as a very elegant solution as it targets only Salmonella and has no other effect on the treated food product, neither in taste, nor texture." The food processing aid can be applied as a topical spray or added to chilled tank water. According to the US Food Safety and Inspection Services of the USDA, illnesses attributed to Salmonella have continued at a high rate or have increased despite previous interventions. "Research has shown that Salmonelex does not dissipate in the presence of protein," according to Dirk de Meester, business development manager for Micreos. "Thus, the product enables processors to reduce the use of chemicals and reach Salmonella in places where antimicrobial chemicals are ineffective, for example in follicles which close when exposed to cold water in a chiller."

Proving safety of any food additive or processing aid for contact application is a herculean task involving heavy investments in resources and time. Ready approval by USFDA and USDA for using this processing aid by the poultry industry in the US is all the more surprising because American meat industry has been misusing antibiotics for enhanced growth of the meat animals though there is no scientific explanation as to why this happens. Whether poultry industry will avoid using antibiotics with the availability of the new disinfecting agent from the Nethelands remains to be seen. Salmonella food poisoning is one of the most serious food safety problems in the US and logic and common sense demand that meat processors use this new tool more extensively to protect the consumers from the threat of Salmonella infection of meat products.

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

RAPID COOLING OF EGGS-A SAFER PRACTICE FOR POUlTRY INDUSTRY

Salmonella bacteria and poultry products are closely linked and to prevent the contamination of chicken derived foods by this much feared pathogen coming from both large poultry farms and smaller ones require effective preventive actions. While large farms with well designed cages can pre-empt contact between the bird feces and the freshly laid eggs, the small poultry farmers have to be more vigilant in sending salmonella free eggs to the market. There are sanitizing agents and other hygienic practices that can reasonably assure that egg is free from salmonella. Keeping quality of egg is another issue that is of concern to egg producers. The current refrigeration practices can only ensure a 6 weeks life before which the egg loses its prime grade quality and premium price. Recent development of a rapid cooling technology using liquid carbon dioxide is considered a boon to poultry farms in ensuring top quality for 12 weeks. Here is a take on this new development. 

"The rapid-cooling process, developed by Kevin Keener, a professor of food science, uses liquid carbon dioxide to stabilize the proteins in egg whites so much that they could be rated AA – the highest grade for eggs – for 12 weeks. Earlier research showed that the same cooling technology could significantly reduce occurrences of salmonella illnesses. Eggs cooled under current methods lose the AA grade in about six weeks, Keener said. "There is no statistical difference in quality between eggs as measured by Haugh units just after laying and rapidly cooled eggs at 12 weeks," he said. "This rapid cooling process can provide a significant extension in the shelf life of eggs compared to traditional processing." Haugh units measure an egg white's protein quality. Keener's results, published in the journal Poultry Science, also show that membranes surrounding the eggs' yolks were maintained for 12 weeks when eggs were rapidly cooled. That membrane is a barrier that keeps harmful bacteria from reaching the yolk, a nutrient-rich reservoir that bacteria could use as a food source".

Safe temperature for the eggs to prevent salmonella proliferation is 45F but if there is a delay in packing, the bacterial population can assume alarming size making it difficult to send to the market. It is in this context that liquid carbon dioxide cooling comes to the rescue of the egg producers and being simple in operation it is affordable to every one. Another advantage is that carbon dioxide is a toxic gas and no life can survive in its presence at certain concentration in the environment. Even sodium bicarbonate is an effective chemical when used in conjunction with an acid salt in generating carbon dioxide in adequate concentration in a closed environment and destroy salmonella. There are also egg washing powder preparations which if used immediately as soon as the egg is laid, can remove  bulk of the pathogen and further use of egg coating oil containing bactericidal chemicals is known to preserve the egg quality for more than 12 weeks. The new development of liquid carbon dioxide treatment makes egg preservation much faster, less tedious and more effective.

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

HUMAN INFECTION AND POULTRY INDUSTRY

Cross infection from animals to humans is well established and many infectious diseases are spread through many 'carriers' co-existing in the environment. But cases of animals getting infected from humans through contact are not well documented though there is a belief that such a possibility is remote. Recent findings by scientists that domesticated chickens, the very foundation of to day's poultry meat industry, were afflicted by bacterial diseases having origin in the humans, can have grave implications on the future of animal based foods.

"It is thought to be the first clear evidence of bacteria crossing from humans to animals and spreading since animals were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Dr Ross Fitzgerald, of the Roslin Institute, said he believed the transfer is linked to major changes in the poultry industry over the last few decades.Half a century ago, chickens were reared for their eggs, with meat regarded as a by-product. Now the demand for meat has led to a poultry industry dominated by a few multinational companies which supply a limited number of breeding lines to a global market, thereby promoting the spread of the bacteria around the world."

It may be far fetched to imagine that industry can insulate meat animals from human contact through robotics or by disease free handling personnel. Diversification of the breeding lines may be the only option that can help to protect the poultry industry from large scale damages due to infection from the operating personnel.

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