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Monday, October 17, 2011
World Food Day
I hope (the program) when they talk about new technologies do not intend to introduce more GMO!
We need a more sustainable agriculture more closely linked to the production of organic food / organic, with zero impact on nature. We also need more education and promotion of vegetarianism as a way to effectively produce enough food for the world's population that grows more and more. Livestock production is completely unsustainable and unnecessary. To change eating habits is also needed more information and toabout real nutritional foods that truly promote health and wellness.
In relation to vegetarianism, let us not be deceived by the food industry that promotes foods like soy as an alternative to meat. There are in fact much better nutritious food and and living foods could change radically the world !!!
Luis Guerreiro
Food prices - from crisis to stability
Price swings, upswings in particular, represent a major threat to food security in developing countries. Hardest-hit are the poor. According to the World Bank, in 2010-2011 rising food costs pushed nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty.
“FOOD PRICES – FROM CRISIS TO STABILITY” has been chosen as this year’s World Food Day theme to shed some light on this trend and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.
On World Food Day 2011, let us look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society.
“FOOD PRICES – FROM CRISIS TO STABILITY” has been chosen as this year’s World Food Day theme to shed some light on this trend and what can be done to mitigate its impact on the most vulnerable.
On World Food Day 2011, let us look seriously at what causes swings in food prices, and do what needs to be done to reduce their impact on the weakest members of global society.
Source:http://www.fao.org/
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Cataplana - Femina 2011
Kl. 15.30: Den portugisiske kok Luis Guerreiro demonstrerer opskrifter forberedt i "Cataplana", moderne portugisisk wok. Arrangementet foregår på engelsk.
15.30: The Portuguese chef Luis Guerreiro demonstrated "Cataplana" modern Portuguese wok. The event was conducted in English.
Great show at Femina !
This pan is great as it cooks on very low eat but quite fast.
The special round shape makes it ideal for steaming all types of food, it cooks around 20 minutes.
Can be bought in Denmark from http://vinport.dk/
Prices starting at 569,00DKK for the smallest model ø24 cm.
It's made of stainless-steel with a bottom that stores eat. Works in all kinds of cookers.
It can be also used in the oven and my challenge is to make some nice raw warm food soon with it !!!
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Portuguese TVI reported:
Plants can recognize rivals and fight, study says
An interesting article from 2009 that I kept in my favorites...
Plants can't see or hear, but they can recognize their siblings, and now researchers have found out how: They use chemical signals secreted from their roots, according to a new study.
Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings — plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.
But as soon as one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.
Researchers from the University of Delaware wanted to find out how the plants were able to identify their kin .
"Plants have no visible sensory markers, and they can't run away from where they are planted," Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, said in a statement. "It then becomes a search for more complex patterns of recognition."
Bais and doctoral student Meredith Biedrzycki set up a study with wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant that is often used as a model organism in plant research.
They wanted to use wild populations instead of laboratory-bred species, because the latter "always has cousins floating around in the lab," Bais said.
In a series of experiments, young seedlings were exposed to liquid containing the root secretions, called "exudates," from siblings , from strangers (non-siblings), or only their own exudates.
Six real-life 'X-Files'The length of the longest lateral root and of the hypocotyl, the first leaf-like structure that forms on the plant, were measured. A lateral root is a root that extends horizontally outward from the primary root, which grows downward.
Plants exposed to strangers had greater lateral root formation than the plants that were exposed to siblings.
Further, when sibling plants grow next to each other, their leaves will often touch and intertwine, while stranger plants near each other grow rigidly upright and avoid touching, the authors say.
In future studies, Bais hopes to examine questions such as: How might sibling plants grown in large monocultures, like corn, be affected? Are they more susceptible to pathogens? And how do they survive without competing?
"It's possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy," Bais speculates.
The research also may have implications for the home gardener .
"Often we'll put plants in the ground next to each other and when they don't do well, we blame the local garden center where we bought them, or we attribute their failure to a pathogen," Bais said. "But maybe there's more to it than that."
The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, will be published in the January/February 2010 issue of the journal Communicative & Integrative Biology.
 |
| Harsh Bais, University of Delaware assistant professor of plant and soil sciences, and doctoral student Meredith Bierdrzycki with Arabidopsis plants in the laboratory at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. CREDIT: University of Delaware. |
Greenery grows more roots to absorb resources when next to ‘strangers’
Plants can't see or hear, but they can recognize their siblings, and now researchers have found out how: They use chemical signals secreted from their roots, according to a new study.
Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings — plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.
But as soon as one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.
Researchers from the University of Delaware wanted to find out how the plants were able to identify their kin .
"Plants have no visible sensory markers, and they can't run away from where they are planted," Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, said in a statement. "It then becomes a search for more complex patterns of recognition."
Bais and doctoral student Meredith Biedrzycki set up a study with wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant that is often used as a model organism in plant research.
They wanted to use wild populations instead of laboratory-bred species, because the latter "always has cousins floating around in the lab," Bais said.
In a series of experiments, young seedlings were exposed to liquid containing the root secretions, called "exudates," from siblings , from strangers (non-siblings), or only their own exudates.
Six real-life 'X-Files'The length of the longest lateral root and of the hypocotyl, the first leaf-like structure that forms on the plant, were measured. A lateral root is a root that extends horizontally outward from the primary root, which grows downward.
Plants exposed to strangers had greater lateral root formation than the plants that were exposed to siblings.
Further, when sibling plants grow next to each other, their leaves will often touch and intertwine, while stranger plants near each other grow rigidly upright and avoid touching, the authors say.
In future studies, Bais hopes to examine questions such as: How might sibling plants grown in large monocultures, like corn, be affected? Are they more susceptible to pathogens? And how do they survive without competing?
"It's possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy," Bais speculates.
The research also may have implications for the home gardener .
"Often we'll put plants in the ground next to each other and when they don't do well, we blame the local garden center where we bought them, or we attribute their failure to a pathogen," Bais said. "But maybe there's more to it than that."
The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, will be published in the January/February 2010 issue of the journal Communicative & Integrative Biology.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33400752/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
10 Naughtiest Vegetables on Earth
10. Wee Weenie Carrot. Image: Lucie Smith
We love organic fruits and veggies here at Organic Authority, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a certain fondness for those rejects from the green grocer’s table that look a little... different. Just because an edible piece of earth-grown goodness appears a bit bizarre, doesn’t mean it’s crammed full of chemicals or that it's genetically modified to the max. In fact, you might think some of these succulent veggies look mouth-wateringly delicious. Vegetables grow into such cheeky forms due to a variety of environmental factors such as unfavorable growing conditions or inadequate pollination. But (speaking of inadequacy) is this an excuse for some of the lewder shapes these errant veggies take? You decide. Just remember: what we see says more about the purity of our minds than the failing of some fruity-looking fruit.
9. You say potato, we say good golly...
Image via Heavy Petal
Almost too explicit to be included; this potato's resemblance to the male member is made the more stark by the way it’s being gripped. You know what we could do with one of these? Whip up some mashed potatoes! If the definition of an oddly shaped veggie is one that’s not in line with its normal body plan, this bad boy sure fits the bill.
8. Nice to meet you, Ben Dover...
Image via Heavy Petal
A switch of gender now with another bawdy view we might not expect from a potato. Two buttocks are placed on a plinth and we’d sooner not go into any more detail. As for a pseudo-scientific explanation, it looks like a case of Siamese twins – that's two fruit growing together, which is actually not all that uncommon.
Now we're as big fans of pomme de terres as the next culinarily inclined folks – a mid-sized, oven baked jacket potato (with its skin on, of course) provides almost half our recommended Daily Value of vitamin C plus a fair percentage of the potassium and vitamin B6 we need – but nutrients need some table manners too.
7. Parsnip caught with its pants down
Image: fireflies604
Not according to this parsnip, which isn’t so much phallic as packing its very own projecting phallus. It’s like the bottom half of a miniature mannequin that was a little too well made, with a naughty bit it should put away. Either that or nature's designer lost count and started on a third leg it couldn’t finish. Obscenely inspired.
6. Well hung carrot
Image: Gary Koelling
This next lascivious reject from Nature's line of veggie dummies is a carrot letting it all hang out... But speaking seriously for a second about the causes of such abnormalities: when a root vegetable is growing and its tip receives damage, it's liable to split, forming various roots joined at one point. Cue peels of laughter.
Of course, when they're not getting all frisky and upsetting the in-laws, root veggies like these make for great grub. For a simple, tasty dish, try this: parboil some parsnips andcarrots for 8-10 minutes; let them cool; toss them in olive oil, garlic, rosemary and seasoning; then roast for 35 minutes, or until golden brown. Delish!
5. Cheeky butt-tomato
Image: Sauri
What’s plump, juicy, has two squeezable cheeks and would look irresistible, however you dressed it? Hint: the answer has nothing to do with J-Lo and everything to do with this prime bit of beef – beef tomato, that is. With this evidence, it’s easy to see whytomatoes were once known as love apples.
4. Enough to make the other fruit blush
Image: pauly...
OK, phallic cucumbers we get. Squashes too. Even carrots we can understand. But tomatoes? These plump greenhouse products should be flying the flag for all things curvaceous, not flaunting bits that jut out at an embarrassing angle like a half-raised marquee. Maybe it was stored too close to the peaches.
For a mouth-watering yet devilishly simple salad to clean your palate after a meal, lay a few fresh slices of a deliciously, garden, fresh tomato on a serving plate, sprinkle with a pinch of fleur de sel, drizzle it with some balsamic glaze and extra-virgin olive oil. Can you say, yum?!
3. Strawberry doo-dah
Image: Tony Robinson via r3tr0fr34k
Dear oh dear, what do we have next on the menu? A strawberry that really shouldn’t have been allowed to grow into this shape. As we’re learning, it’s really not unusual for fruit and veggies to take on the amusing appearance of our own more private body parts. Enough to make Grandma cover her eyes.
Still, before we crack up, back to the scientific explanation bit: damage to one part of a given veggie can cause the growth to slow in that area while the rest continues to develop as normal, and even more mutation will occur if this happens while the plant is still in its embryonic stage.
2. Peppery porn
Image: Nex Ninek
No mutations in this next snapshot of vegetable naughtiness – just shamelessly choreographed eroticism of the bawdiest kind. Or smut, we prefer to call it. For shame. Soft vegetable porn if we ever saw it.
These peppers may have been exempt from such legislation, but did you know there was a recent attempt to reinstate an EU-wide ban on misshapen fruit and veggies, which was blocked over concerns that it would increase food wastage? "The shape of a fruit is irrelevant to its taste and nutrition," said one British Euro MP in response to the proposed "uniform standardization parameters" which would have forbidden everything from curly cucumbers to fused fruit like those we’ve seen. “Bravo!” came the chorus from these coarsest of veggies.
1. Hot chilli pepper peckers
Image via Heavy Petal
Were these wayward peppers grown using moulds that helped shape them into these lewd forms – complete with wrinkles and folds? Apparently not – although the semblance between them and a certain part of the male anatomy seems too conspicuous for simple serendipity. Whatever next?
What can we say to conclude this XXX-rated garden show? Well for one we can wish all the contestants luck for the future. Not that they’ll need it. They’re living proof that ruder forms survive.
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