- A new Twitter list on ex situ plant conservation. Subscribe!
- Yeah we need a new Twitter list like fish need trees. No, wait…
- “64 traditional varieties of paddy, vegetables and millets will be exhibited.”
- Junk food worse than tobacco, UN says.
- An overview of origin-linked products. No junk food there.
- New Zealand heirloom seed collection in trouble.
- Canadian heirloom seed collection takes off. Maybe these two should talk?
Thanks for the heads up on the Canadian heirloom seed collection. It’s something that I can easily save a few extra open pollinated vegetable seeds for each year.
As much as I have a lot of respect for Mr. de Schutter, I couldn’t disagree with him more on this issue.
Not only is there very little reason to classify sugar and salt as ‘bad’, but they are essential ingredients in traditionally processed foods. Making jam or canned fruit with less or no sugar results in a runny product with a shorter shelf life, and many dried or preserved fruits and meats depend on salt to extend their shelf life.
Even declaring saturated fats as bad is condeming pasture raised meats to the margins.
I think if he wanted to pick the most effective ingredients to attack locally produced and traditional food, he couldn’t have done any better.
De Schutter is a major proponent of `agroecology’ so I am not keen on listening to anything also he promotes (or rubbishes). One recent attack on `bad’ food – vegetable oils – accepts the hare-brained FAO classification of soybean as an oil seed (`bad’ as with palm oil) rather than a pulse. For every million tons of vegetable oil produced from soybean there are 2 million tons of valuable, tasty, vegetable protein.