cookiesinheaven

Test-tube meat is also known as in vitro meat, cultured meat, victimless meat, vat-grown meat, hydroponic meat and, finally, shmeat. (Note to self: Be sure to apply for inevitable X Prize to rename this stuff.) Shmeat is grown from a cell culture (hence the in vitro or cultured prefixes), not from a live animal. These harvested cells are taken from an animal, such as a pig, and placed in a “nutrient-rich medium” that mimics blood. Once the cells multiply they are attached to a spongy scaffold or “sheet” (sheet + meat = shmeat) that has been soaked with nutrients and stretched to increase cell size and protein content.

This shmeat could, in theory, be harvested in vast quantities and used in minced meat products: burgers, nuggety things, or potted meat-food products, etc. While scientists (they call themselves “tissue engineers”) admit that growing a pork chop with a bone without a real pig attached is not likely, they also say that affordable, palatable minced shmeat might be available at a grocery store near you within a decade.

So… is this news great? Or gross? If it’s hard for you to tell, I assure you, you are not alone. - whole life times

Labels: Food, food supply, meat

Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores across the country now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields in response to a crippling drought.

California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the country's fruits and vegetables in normal years, but this winter thousands of acres are turning to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades. - AP via YahooNews

Labels: California Agriculture, drought, farmers, food supply

Aid organizations around the world face budget shortfalls because of a rise in global food prices. The Rome-based World Food Program will have to reduce food shipments to disaster-hit places such as Darfur unless it can close a $500 million deficit.

Food prices have soared 55% since June alone, according to the WFP. The higher costs have resulted from rising oil prices, the use of crops for biofuels and skyrocketing demand for food in developing economies such as China and India.

The amount of food aid delivered abroad by the U.S. government has fallen 43% from 2002-07, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. - USAToday

...The warning comes as Egypt mobilises its army to bake more bread and overcome severe shortages that have led to disturbances in long queues forming outside bakeries. Four people have died in clashes amid claims that subsidised flour has been sold off for profit on the black market. - The Guardian

Labels: Food, food supply, Hunger, prices

Through the salvaging practice, melamine-tainted pet food has likely contaminated America’s livestock for as long as it has been killing and sickening America’s pets — as far back as August of 2006, or even earlier. And while it may seem alarmist to suggest without absolute proof that Americans have been eating melamine-tainted pork, chicken and farm-raised fish for the better part of a year, the FDA and USDA seem to be preparing to brace Americans for the worst. In an unusual, Saturday afternoon joint press release, the regulators tasked with protecting the safety of our nation’s food supply go to convoluted lengths to reassure the public that eating melamine-tainted pork is perfectly safe.

And it gets worse. Tomorrow the New York Times will report from China, detailing how nitrogen-rich melamine scrap, produced from coal, is routinely ground into powder and mixed into low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins to inflate the protein analysis of animal feed:

The melamine powder has been dubbed “fake protein” and is used to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that provides higher nutrition value.

“It just saves money,” says a manager at an animal feed factory here. “Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein level.”

The practice is widespread in China. For years animal feed sellers have been able to cheat buyers by blending the powder into feed with little regulatory supervision, according to interviews with melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.

Labels: FDA, food safety, food supply, Government

Labels: FDA, food supply, Recalls

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query.

...Wheat gluten is sold in both "food grade" and "feed grade" varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only "food grade" gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption. Published reports have thus far focused on tainted pet food, but if the gluten in question entered the human food supply through a major food products supplier and processor, it could potentially contaminate thousands of products and hundreds of millions of units nationwide. - Huffington Post and Goldy's

Labels: deregulation, food supply

Labels: bees, food supply, Honey