The Lubin Files

The UN and FAO continue to make the case for eating insects.

United States National Public Radio recently reported on the use of insects as food and the obstacles to making large scale consumption and use of insects a reality.  Wealthier nations battle a disgust factor that may greatly affect investment in insect farming, but also have laws that make the use of insects as food difficult.  FAO and the UN are working to clarify laws that would clear the way for greater use of insects as food in developed nations.  If you would like to learn more, you can read the entire article here.

Also have a look at the publication Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security, which was launched by FAO last Monday, 13 May, in conjunction with the International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition.

IDS Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index

The Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index is produced by the Institute of Development Studies. In this index, the IDS ranks and measures countries according to their achievements and failures in addressing hunger and malnutrition.

HANCI 2012 was published in April of 2013. Key findings are:

• Guatemala was the best, and Guinea Bissau was the worst performing country in 2012.
• Guinea Bissau shows the lowest level of political commitment to reduce hunger and undernutrition.
• Economic growth has not necessarily led to a commitment from governments to tackle hunger and undernutrition.
• Low wealth or slow economic growth in a country does not necessarily imply low levels of political commitment.
• Significantly, within areas of high and growing hunger and undernutrition prevalence, some countries are clearly showing much greater political commitment
  undernutrition, leaving traditional powerhouses (South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola) in their wake.
• The relative commitment to hunger reduction does not predict the relative commitment to nutrition.

Download the full report from the website of the IDS.

 

Meat inspectors

I made an earlier post about impending layoffs of meat inspectors in the United States as a result of "the sequester."

Last Wednesday, March 20th, the US Senate approved an amendment to the US Constitution that allows the government to keep meat inspectors on the job.

Bacteria and Malnutrition

A recent study published in Science Magazine found that deficiences in a person's gut flora can be a major causal factor in the incidence of the form of malnutrition known as kwashiorkor. 

The study examined sets of twins in Malawi. Seven percent of the pairs of twins studied included a healthy twin and a malnutritioned twin, even though both were fed the same diet.

Through the course of the study, scientists discovered that those children with kwashiorkor also had a particular gut bacteria that, when combined with a very basic diet, caused malnutrition in mice.  This bacteria inhibited the creation of certain amino acids that the human body cannot make by itself. 

Science magazine is available by library subscription to FAO staff in HQ or remotely via the FAO Secure Access Gateway.

Dire straits for the US Dept of Agriculture after sequestration

As a result of the automatic budget cuts in the United States known as "the sequester," the United States Department of Agriculture will likely be forced to impose temporary layoffs on meat inspectors. 

The United States food industry argues that the government has a legal obligation to continue meat inspection despite the cuts, but the US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack argues that he has no choice:

“There will be disruption in [the meat inspection] process ... Make no mistake about it, there is not enough flexibility in the sequester language for me to move money around to avoid furloughs of food inspectors.”

This move would effectively shut down meat and poultry production all across the United States.

The article in the link above comes from the Food Safety News portal.  Go back to Food Safety News to read more about sequestration and meat inspection.

More about leaf concentrate and malnutrition

Last week, I posted an entry introducing leaf concentrate (LC). 

Appropriate Technology published a followup article to the one I blogged about entitled "The greatest untapped food resource on earth, part 2" 39(4)11-13. This second article discusses the variety of ways in which LC can be used to supplement the diets of undernourished populations.  LC has also provided astonishing results in helping HIV/AIDS patients suffering from malnutrition.  Some of the nutrients contained in LC are:

iron
vitamin A and B9 (folic acid)
vitamin E
vitamins B6 and B12
vitamin K
calcium
lutein
omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids
high quality protein

This article includes a recipe for cookies using LC. You can find a list of recipes that include LC as a main ingredient here.

Appropriate Technology is part of the library's print journal collection, but a scanned version of this article can be made available to FAO staff members upon request. Contact fao-library-reference@fao.org if you would like to have a copy of it.

Leaf Concentrate: a food resource?

Leaf Concentrate (LC or LPC) could be the greatest untapped food resource on earth.  It is an extremely nutritious food created by mashing the leaves of plants that otherwise are not easily digested by humans.  The juice gathered by mashing is boiled to create a curd that is then pressed into a cheese-like consistency.

LC is fairly inexpensive to produce, and its byproducts make an excellent animal feed.  Though it has been studied for years, interest has re-surfaced to find inexpensive ways to produce it locally in the countries where it will be eaten. 

France Luzerne, a group of agricultural co-operatives, has been working with and researching LC since the 1970s and is a leader in promoting LC through its NGO-- the Association pour la Promotion des Extraits Foliaires en nutrition, or APEF.

The journal Appropriate Technology recently published an article about LC entitled "The greatest untapped food resource on earth" 39(3)12-14. This article is part of the library's print collection, but scanned copies are available to FAO staff upon request.  Contact fao-library-reference@fao.org if you would like to have a copy of this article.

K49 Aspergillus and Bioplastic “bullets” used to combat aflatoxins in corn farming

Several species of Aspergillus fungi produce highly toxic aflatoxins that upon contaminating corn fields create huge losses in yield of useable grain.  One strain of aspergillus known as K49, does not produce aflatoxins and is quite adept at excluding its toxic cousins via biocompetitive exclusion.

A team of scientists is working to use this strain of fungus encapsulated in small cornstarch bioplastic containers to battle the growth of toxic aspergillus fungi in corn fields.  These small bioplastic “bullets” keep small rodents and birds from eating the fungi before it has an opportunity to release spores and disperse, and are also biodegradable.

To learn more about how K49 might be dispersed and how the use of the bioplastic “bullets” may help deliver other soil-applied fungi, you can read more here.

FAO publication - Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies: Food-based Approaches

FAO and CAB International have recently published the following book:

Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies: Food-based Approaches

Here is a brief summary:
Micronutrient deficiencies affect more than two billion people in the world today. With long-ranging effects on health, learning ability and productivity they contribute to the vicious cycle of malnutrition, underdevelopment and poverty. Food-based approaches, which include food production, dietary diversification and food fortification, are sustainable strategies for improving the micronutrient status of populations and raising levels of nutrition. Combating Micronutrient Deficiencies: Food-based Approaches focuses on practical, sustainable actions for overcoming micronutrient deficiencies through increased availability, access to and consumption of adequate quantities and appropriate varieties of safe, good quality food.

Click here to access this publication online.

New FAO publication: “The Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition”

The recent FAO/Springer publication “The Impact of Climate Change and Bioenergy on Nutrition” examines the effects of climate change, bioenergy, and the economic crises of 2007-2010 on food and nutrition security. It shows how climate changes could affect food production through declines in crop yields, aquatic populations and forest productivity, proliferation of invasive insect and plant species and increases in desertification, soil salinization and water stress.

Similarly the pathways by which increased demands for biofuels can negatively affect food and nutrition security including by reducing physical availability and economic access to food and by increasing the risk of disease are described. Biofuel production may reduce women’s control of resources, which may in turn reduce the quality of household diets.

The book provides a unique collection of nutrition statistics, climate change projections, biofuel scenarios and food security information and offers explicit examples of adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate change and biofuel production within the agricultural sector.