‘Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much’
This is essentially what a hundred years of nutritional science; and 610,000 records on CAB Abstracts boil down to, according to journalist and author, Michael Pollan, in his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. While I by no means agree with everything that he says in this interview with Terrence McNally on…
25 future novel threats facing UK biodiversity
There requires a greater emphasis on forecasting and critical evaluation, and less dawdling on existing, well studied issues: in summary, this is the main recommendation made by 35 senior representatives from UK academia, environmental management & policy, and scientific journalism. Using a technique called ‘horizon scanning.’ They have established a list of 25 future novel…
Will the Nile dry up?
Scientists are unable to make up their minds about the impact that climate change will have on the future of the Nile. Specialists say Egypt is already facing massive water management challenges due to demographic pressures and rising demand for water and electricity, but it is unclear what affect climate change is going to throw…
Will it be Mimi, Cherie, Annabel or Orla?
No, I’m not talking about the celebrities in this week’s OK! magazine, I’m talking about potatoes. Featured in the March issue of The Garden, these horticultural lovelies have all been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM). Each cultivar was judged on tuber quality, eye depth, skin colour and flesh colour, yield and taste.
Nutrigenomics On The Menu In Paris
Ahhh, Paris! City of food and fashion…But the latest trend to hit the food industry is certainly no fad. Personalised nutrition is the ‘new black’ in the world of food. No longer do we need to embarrass ourselves by appearing at the supermarket with a trolley full of identical shopping to our neighbour. Whether or…
Ug99: One Year On
An opportunity here, for me to recap on a post I wrote back in January ’07. Puccinia graminis strain Ug99 has once again hit the headlines and it isn’t good news. The situation in outline is that the Ug99 strain of black rust fungus readily attacks wheat plants, as it resists the most popular rust-resistance…
Death by CAP
How EU economists are ‘killing Europeans through CHD’ Surprisingly, it’s not the acronyms that are at the root of the World Health Organization’s damning accusation, it’s our old friends, saturated fats. The common agricultural policy (CAP) was put in place by the powers that be in Europe, not just to confuse any non-economist who has…
Algae for biofuels: solving the land-use problem
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that there isn’t enough suitable land space to grow crops for food and feed as well as for biofuel, and to retain the forests and other land uses that sequester carbon in huge quantities. As the Nature blog ‘The Great Beyond’ points out, two articles published in Science in February argue…
‘Nano Inside’
Two words that are unlikely to appear in a supermarket near you any time soon. But not because nanotechnology has no application in food – far from it! The reason that the food industry is unlikely to be advertising the widespread applications of nanotechnology, according to Dr. Frans Kampers, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands,…
Organic biofuels?
While discussing biofuels with a colleague the other week, I wondered whether there was any demand for organically grown biofuels, as people interested in protecting the environment are likely to be interested both in biofuels and in organic agriculture. Not long afterwards I came across a record in CAB Abstracts for an article1 on the…