Clipmarks | dakotayii's 'food' clips

Halal, Kosher,Shechita

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:56:28 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii

Kosher is the term most people would associate with food conforming to Jewish law, but the word to describe the actual method used to slaughter animals is shechita.

According to the Torah - the body of written Jewish laws - the laws of shechita were given to Moses at Mount Sinai, and must be followed if Jews wish to eat meat

"It is absolutely the only method used, according to Jewish law. Eating kosher food is the foremost principle of being an orthodox Jew".

Shechita is performed with an extremely sharp knife, known as a chalaf, making a single cut across the front of the animal's neck, severing several arteries in order for it to bleed to death (as Jews are forbidden from consuming blood). Mr Cohen confirms that "this principle is the same, whether for a bird or a cow".

halal and shechita, are similar, in that both involve cutting the animal's throat. However, the most obvious difference between the two is that the latter does not require any kind of ritual blessing.

Tags: society

"WILL THE BANANA BECOME EXTINCT?"

Wed, 28 May 2008 11:42:45 GMT

clipped by: vk2yoc
clipper's remarks: Eat a banana now, while you still can.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Adios, Banana: Why Future Generations Will Likely Never Taste One of Our Favorite Fruits

It’s less sensational news than skyrocketing food and oil prices, but the beloved yellow banana may soon disappear forever. Bananas are even more heavily consumed in many parts of the world than rice or potatoes, but now a fungus called Panama Disease is turning them brick-red and inedible. Here’s the worst part: There is no cure for Panama Disease and it is spreading very quickly. Experts surmise that within the next three decades, the sweet and creamy food staple will be nonexistent.

“The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us.”

Thanks to bad corporate behaviour and physical limits, we seem to be at a dead end. The only possible glimmer of hope is a genetically modified banana that can resist Panama Disease. But that is a distant prospect, and it is resisted by many people:

Alabama sheriffs feed inmates on $1.75 a day

Sun, 18 May 2008 05:57:52 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: When Etowah County Sheriff James Hayes died in October, thousands of dollars in jail food money went to his estate because it was kept in his personal accounts.

His successor, Todd Entrekin, said he and his wife took out a personal loan for $150,000 the day he took office to purchase jail food until his first state payment came through.
According to legislative researchers, the $1.75-a-day-per-inmate system in Alabama dates to 1927, back when sheriffs and other county officeholders in many states were paid fixed fees for services performed and were allowed to keep whatever was left over.

All but 12 of Alabama's 67 county jails remain on the fee system, with the state paying a total of $5 million to 55 sheriffs last year.
The $1.75 fee was fairly generous at the time, with a reasonable profit built into it for the sheriffs. Besides the $1.75, sheriffs get additional state payments of as much as $11.25 a day for the entire jail. But in a jail with hundreds of inmates, that works

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.

Critics charge that Alabama is, in effect, paying law enforcement to skimp on food and may be rewarding sheriffs for mistreating prisoners.

The few sheriffs who would discuss the arrangement defended it as cost-effective for their counties and disputed any suggestion they are making a lot of money.

Sheriff takes out personal loan
The head of the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts, Ron Jones, said state auditors cannot determine how much some sheriffs are making off the system because the lawmen put the money in personal accounts.

Tags: news

A Key Issue In Global Food Crisis

Sat, 10 May 2008 06:47:54 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: "The first thing to do is to have good soil," said Hans Herren, winner of the World Food Prize. "Even the best seeds can't do anything in sand and gravel."

Clip Source: www.redorbit.com

Through biotechnology and crossbreeding, science has provided the kind of genetically engineered seeds to feed the world. Now the major problem is the soil they’re planted in.

While seeds are improving, the world’s soil is getting worse and famine continues to spread. Some scientists believe that better dirt will be the key solution to the economically triggered global food crisis.

About one-fifth of the world’s cropland is considered damaged as soils around the world are deteriorating. According to a World Resources Institute study, poor soil quality has cut crop production by about one-sixth and some scientists are calling it a slow-motion disaster

Experts says the current global food crisis is mostly based on market forces, speculation and hoarding. But droughts and floods, plant diseases and pests, and often, poor soil contribute heavily

Tags: science

Death toll nears 100,000 in Myanmar

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:43:48 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray

Clip Source: afp.google.com

The death toll from the Myanmar cyclone could top 100,000, the top US diplomat in the country said Wednesday, as thousands of shell-shocked survivors emerged from the flood waters, desperate for food.

The dramatic warning came as global pressure mounted on Myanmar's ruling generals to open up to foreign aid, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling it a "critical moment" for one of the world's poorest nations.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said the country once known as Burma was facing a "major catastrophe", urging the junta to facilitate the arrival of disaster relief teams and the distribution of badly-needed emergency supplies.

An AFP reporter who reached the town of Labutta in the remote southern Irrawaddy delta hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis, which officially left more than 65,000 dead or missing, said there was virtually no food or fresh water left.

Tags: myanmar, cyclone, death toll

You hippy-crites! When it comes to saving the planet do celebrities practise what they preach?

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:57:44 GMT

clipped by: reimers

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Is the hot air emitted by celebrities when they spout ecological platitudes a greenhouse gas?

If so, then the melting of the polar ice caps just moved a step closer, following calls by Trudie Styler, a leading celebrity ecological hypocrite - call them hippy-crites for short - for the general public to eat more locally grown vegetables.

Campaigning against food miles might seem an unlikely cause for Styler, given that a tribunal last year heard how she ordered her personal chef to travel over 100 miles to make a bowl of pasta for her youngest child and has sold olive oil and honey from her Tuscan estate, Il Palagio, 1,000 or so miles away, in Harrods in London.

So it was hardly surprising that an alert journalist present at the lecture, which was being staged as part of the Earls Court Real Food Festival, had the wit to question the environmental record of Styler and her husband Sting.

Urban Gardener Thinks Higher: A Rooftop Garden for Room to Grow

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:53:35 GMT

clipped by: urbanlife
clipper's remarks: Why should you consider a rooftop garden?

* Increase access to private outdoor green space within the urban environment
* Support urban food production
* Promote individual, community, and cultural diversity
* Improve air quality and reduce CO2 missions
* Delay stormwater runoff
* Increase habitat for birds
* Insulate buildings
* Increase the value of buildings for owners and tenants alike
* Create job opportunities in the field of research, design, construction, Iandscaping, gardening, health, and food production

Clip Source: www.thegrowspot.com

Clip Source: usahomeandgarden.com

Clip Source: adaptivereuse.net

Clip Source: www.greenroofs.com

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Clip Source: www.marigreen.cz

Clip Source: www.margueritegardens.com

Clip Source: environmentkrishna.blogspot.com

Tags: roof, green, environment, heat island, farm, community garden

Chinese leader may talk with Dalai Lama

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:31:34 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: HOORAY ......... Hey China .most of your products is shit, human rights is shit, but food is good please put in some afford as you would put in your food . All Tibet wants is peace which cost noting if you think about it ............

Clip Source: seattlepi.nwsource.com

LONDON -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Wednesday that he is prepared to hold discussions on Tibet with the Dalai Lama, Brown said.

Brown said he spoke with Wen to call for restraint after violent protests in the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet in almost two decades.

"I made it absolutely clear that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet," Brown told lawmakers in the House of Commons.

"I also called for constraint, and I called for an end to the violence by dialogue between the different parties.

"The premier told me that, subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said - that he does not support the total independence of Tibet, and that he renounces violence - that he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama," Brown said.

"The most important thing at the moment is to bring an end to the violence, reconciliation, and to see legitimate talks taking place between those people and China," Brown added.

Tags: news

Hunger in the U.S.A.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:36:45 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.thehungersite.com

Hunger in the U.S.

Families in Crisis

It is a tragic reality that the United States, one of the richest nations in the world, is also plagued with a poverty-driven hunger crisis. The statistics tell the troubling story. In 2005:

Every day, millions of children in America go to bed hungry.

12.9 million (17.8%) children under the age of 18 were in poverty

20.5 million (11.3%) of people aged 18-64 were in poverty

Poverty is forcing millions of Americans into a hunger crisis. Their hunger emergency is defined by food insecurity, which is the lack of access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.² Families find themselves buying cheaper and less nutritious food, or cutting entire meals out of their diet, just to make ends meet. Increasing over time, this pattern leads to chronic malnutrition, affecting children and families in profoundly destructive ways.

The Hidden Poor

Working Poor

Children

Rural Poor

Solving Hunger

House Bill 282 would make it illegal to feed the obese in Mississippi

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:19:00 GMT

clipped by: alanocu
clipper's remarks: Three legislators want to make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers in Mississippi.

Clip Source: blogs.usatoday.com

Three legislators want to make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers in Mississippi.

House Bill No. 282, which was introduced this month, says: Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

The Jackson Free Press doesn't expect it to garner much support in the statehouse.

Clip Source: viewer.zoho.com

Tags: obesity, mississippi

Robots Evolve And Learn How to Lie

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:52:52 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: By the 50th generation, the robots had learned to communicate—lighting up, in three out of four colonies, to alert the others when they’d found food or poison. The fourth colony sometimes evolved “cheater” robots instead, which would light up to tell the others that the poison was food, while they themselves rolled over to the food source and chowed down without emitting so much as a blink.

Some robots, though, were veritable heroes. They signaled danger and died to save other robots. “Sometimes,” Floreano says, “you see that in nature—an animal that emits a cry when it sees a predator; it gets eaten, and the others get away—but I never expected to see this in robots.”

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Robots can evolve to communicate with each other, to help, and even to deceive each other, according to Dario Floreano of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Floreano and his colleagues outfitted robots with light sensors

and placed them in habitats furnished with glowing “food sources” and patches of “poison” that recharged or drained their batteries. Their neural circuitry was programmed with just 30 “genes,” elements of software code that determined how much they sensed light and how they responded when they did.

To create the next generation of robots, Floreano recombined the genes of those that proved fittest—those that had managed to get the biggest charge out of the food source.

The resulting code

in essence, offspring.

Tags: science

Raw food detox diet list

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:49:31 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii

Clip Source: paktribune.com

Raw Food Detox Diet

Raw Food Detox Diet List

1- Apricots

2- Grapes

Good source of antioxidants

3- Lemons

With great antioxidant power,

4- Celery

Improves blood circulation

5- Parsley

This food detox is good for improving digestion

6- Artichoke

It has diuretic properties

7- Asparagus

very effective in cleansing the organism. Is has a diuretic, laxative and tonic effect.

8- Onions

Improves liver function,

9- Watercress

This raw food detox is used in medicine to treat kidney problems.

10- Yogurt

Due to the live and active cultures, improves the immune and digestive systems. Helps to decrease yeast infection, can reduce the risk of cancer, helps to improve lactose absorption.

A New Taste Sensation-Umami

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:57:06 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: Very good article rather long

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

A New Taste Sensation

But now, in the wake of breakthroughs in food science -- and amid a burst of competition between ingredient makers to create new food flavorings -- umami is going mainstream.

The food industry is embracing umami as part of an effort to deliver highly flavored foods to consumers while also cutting back on fat, salt, sugar and artificial ingredients.

To an increasing number of chefs and food-industry insiders, the answer is "umami," dubbed "the fifth taste."

Americans are taught from an early age that there are four basic tastes -- sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But what describes the taste of chicken soup?

To understand the taste of umami, imagine a perfectly dressed Caesar salad, redolent of Parmesan cheese, minced anchovies and Worcestershire sauce; or slurping chicken soup; or biting into a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza. The savory taste of these foods, and the full, tongue-coating sensation they provide, is umami.

Tags: `science