- How to make a cordial from tuna. No, not the fish.
- Looking beyond the borders of protected areas.
- NY Times op-ed on “hidden hunger.”
- Google reveals backyard chicken coop bubble in US.
- 3000-year-old irrigation system found in Arizona.
- New NWFP-Digest out.
- An overview of ungulate conservation in Mexico.
- Protected wolves threaten sheep flocks in China.
The glut of bugs in your gut
A long article on The Why Files discusses changing attitudes to the human gut flora:
These critters, mainly bacteria, vastly outnumber the cells in our bodies, and we are utterly dependent on them. Bacteria make vitamin K, essential for clotting blood. As they do in cows, bacteria play an essential role converting our food into usable chemicals. And bacteria form a complex barrier against invading pathogenic microbes.
The realization of which has led to an explosion of proper scientific work on probiotics ((“Live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host,” according to the WHO.)), formerly confined to the lunatic fringe.
A springboard for the growing interest, Huffnagle ((Gary Huffnagle, professor of internal medicine and microbiology at the University of Michigan Health System.)) says, was a discovery by Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University, who found that bacteria “can talk to the epithelial cells that line the GI tract, which can turn on different genes depending on who is living nearby.â€
What’s the connection to agrobiodiversity? More from the article in The Why Files:
Probiotics can be taken in supplement pills, or in many cultured products, such as yogurt, cottage cheese, tempeh and kefir. It’s not clear which mechanism is better, says Sanders ((Mary Ellen Sanders, executive director of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics.)), who consults to the dairy industry on microbiology. “Often probiotics are incorporated into the production of a food product, but we don’t really have a good sense of how important that might be. During the fermentation of milk into a dairy product, they may … produce organic acids or peptides that contribute to the health effects of a probiotic yogurt, but unfortunately there is no good research to sort out the benefits of a fermented dairy product versus a dry supplement.”
So microbial agrobiodiversity doesn’t just result in a huge range of delicious products with strong niche market potential. It’s also good for you.
Coffee wild relative voted among top 10 new species
Here’s a cool idea. Apparently the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists get together regularly and pick the top 10 new species described in the previous year. They’ve just announced the 2008 picks, and they include a crop wild relative. It’s Coffea charrieriana, a caffeine-free coffee from Cameroon. It was named after “Professor A. Charrier, who managed coffee breeding research and collecting missions at IRD during the last 30 years of the 20th century.” And with whom I had the privilege to work some years back in the early days of the African Coffee Research Network. Congratulations to all concerned.
Latest AJFAND arrives
The latest issue of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (Vol. 9 No. 2) is out.
Nutrition features prominently as a result of the Ugandan Nutrition Congress which was successfully held in mid-February 2009 and we shall continue to announce the upcoming International Conference on Nutrition to be held in Bangkok in October 2009 and which will give prominence to African issues
That extends to Editor-in-Chief Prof. Ruth Oniang’o’s editorial.
Fungus flavours fermented food
Did you know that…
[t]he edible fungus Monascus purpureus imparts a distinct flavor and red color when added to fermented rice dishes such as those served in Asia.
Neither did I. But the boffins at USDA do.