Pioneering restauranteur Alice Waters on Slow Food and more.
Ancient Irish beer recreated
Archaeologists interpret fulacht fiadh, brew ancient Irish beer, then go for curry.
All cows are not equal
Cows produce milk, right? Its qualities vary among breeds, with creamy Jersey milk at one end and that skimmed milk cow at the other. And the quantity varies within a breed, which is how we got to the monster lactation machines that are the modern Friesian. But until this morning I had no idea that there was a distinct difference in the type of milk produced by cows within a breed.
Apparently, the major protein in milk, beta-casein, comes in two different forms, called A1 and A2 (original, huh). Some cows have both forms of casein in their milk, some only A1 and some only A2. (Students of genetics will want to know the ratios. I can’t seem to find them.) The A2 corporation, which has registered and trademarked A2 milkâ„¢, says that the A2 form is the original, and that at some point in the past a mutation produced A1. It also hints strongly that as a result, pure A2 milk is better for you. There seems to be some evidence floating around out there, but none of it is overwhelmingly positive.
Anyway, one can determine which cows produce what milk with a simple DNA test, and this morning’s awakening came from a report about the first dairy farm in the US to separate the milk from its A2 cows. A dairy company in Lincoln, Nebraska has started to market A2 milk in the US. To say they are cagey about the exact health claims they are making for this premium priced product would be the understatement of the week.
“To say there is no controversy over this would not be correct,” said Timothy Thietje, CEO of The Original Foods Company, a Nebraska-based marketer of A2 Milk.
“But to say there’s a substantial body of evidence both in terms of science and the response from people who use the product is correct.”
Right.
All this started in New Zealand and Australia, where the milk is marketed without the approval of the milk boards; what would all those other farmers do? But could this, just possibly, be a case in which reducing diversity might be good for you?
Australia invests in wheat genes
You can’t keep a good man down. Dr Ken Street, who may or may not be the Indiana Jones of agriculture, has been explaining why Australia’s Grains and Development Corporation (GRDC) has given $5 million to the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Part of GRDC’s contribution is earmarked for Central Asia and the Caucasus, where wheat and other cereals were domesticated and where there are still valuable genetic resources. The Trust will help to conserve material collected in those regions, which Street says has already demonstrated resistance to three different kinds of wheat rust: leaf, yellow and stripe. GRDC is funded by a levy on Australian cereal farmers, and the genetic resources supported by the Trust will be freely available to all researchers. So, as Street neatly sums up: “the benefit to Australia is access to genes that could solve many current production constraints”.
Back to biofuels
On the one hand, there’s a good chance that the rush to biofuels will create conflict, especially in developing countries. Indeed, according to Gristmill it is already happening in places like West Kalimantan, in Indonesia, “where the rush to plant palm-oil plantations is generating conflict with Indonesians who grow rubber trees and other crops on their small plots of land”. And on the other, scientists are helping turn biodiesel into a “proper” industry, with profitable by-products that make the whole enterprise more profitable. The New York Times reports on USDA researchers who are exploring ways to make use of the waste products of biodiesel, including some with horticultural applications.